


the long way down

by Japery



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Dairy Queen Shenanigans, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Magical Boy Sam Girard, Mutual Pining, Sex while injured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-21 00:01:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16148321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Japery/pseuds/Japery
Summary: A good Nova Scotian boy doesn’t consort with demons, and Nate is nothing if he’s not a good Nova Scotian boy.or: Nate loses his heart to a devil.





	the long way down

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [oflights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oflights/pseuds/oflights) in the [boysarehot](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/boysarehot) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Something mythology-based, like the story of Orpheus! 
> 
> Like...x sold his soul for a turnaround from the bad season and a, b and c have to go rescue him from the underworld because they turned things around on their own, dammit, and x didn't even win the Hart.
> 
> (I think you see where I'm going with this lol. Love the concept of having to rescue Nate from the underworld! This can be gen, it can be expanded to include more Avs like Mikko or Josty or any Avs tbh. If there's a relationship, I'd prefer it be one of those up top! And you can obviously switch who player x is, it really doesn't have to be Nate. Just have fun, and a happy ending please!)
> 
> \--  
> i don't claim to know and mean no harm to the people represented in this fic, if you found this by googling yourself or anyone you know, i'd advise you to click right on out of here.
> 
> this is my 25k, prompt adjacent contribution to the boys are hot fic challenge s/o to all you cool cats. this was inspired by literally one pun and took over my life for a month. i had it follow the timeline from the summer of 16-17 to the 2018 nhl awards, mostly, except once again, completely ignoring gabe's suspension. 
> 
> thanks to allie for the prompt, erica for betaing this monster for me, ethan and annie, for your horse facts, and the city of montreal, sorry i filled you with demons. the title is from 'wait for me' from hadestown: the myth. the musical by anais mitchell, which between the playlist i made for this fic and the ost i spent most of my time writing this listening to.

It starts at the World Cup.

Johnny pitches the puck to him, desperate as they pin him against the boards, and suddenly Nate has it on his stick, all alone in front of the net. Lundqvist stares him down behind his mask, eyes grey as flint and waiting to catch fire. Nate’s breath catches in his throat, and the world stops. 

The crowd is a dull roar braced up against his shoulders, and his hands stay steady on his grip. He dekes, weaves in and out, toe drags, dodges a swipe from Lundqvist, backhands it and—Lundqvist topples, and the crowd drowns out the sound of the goal horn, even if he can’t hear either over the pounding of his own heart. 

The team rushes towards him, wraps him up in a mess of bodies as they stream over the boards. He can barely see anything over the sea of black and white smothering him with hugs, but he manages to catch Jo’s eye as he pushes his way through. Nate smiles at him, as bright as he can muster, and the whole goddamn world smiles back. 

“That was a filthy fuckin’ goal.” Jo says, again, voice hoarse from screaming already as they stumble into their hotel room, far too late for their own goods. He trips a little on the carpet in the front hallway, and Nate has to lean over to catch him around the waist. “Filthy fuckin’ hero.” He says, his eyes dark and shining with intention as he beams up at Nate from the cradle of his arm. Jo makes no effort to pull away as they kick off their shoes, Jo throwing his own haphazardly over to his side of the room, and when they throw themselves over Nate’s bed Nate makes no effort to push him off, even as he takes the weight of him over his side.

Jo shifts to press their hips together, and Nate lets them settle in for a second, soaking in the feeling of the two of them wrapped up in the sheets and each other again, before he bumps Jo’s hip, not hard, but with enough unexpected force to nearly push the smaller man off the bed. Jo squawks as he finds himself suddenly halfway off the bed, and kicks out, hooking his ankle with Nate’s. Nate swipes at him with one hand that Jo blocks with a shoulder. Jo pushes up against him and leverages himself up to swing his leg over, bracketing over Nate’s thigh. He balls a hand in Nate’s shirt over his collar to steady himself, and Nate’s breath stalls. 

Jo is running hot where his wrist presses against Nate’s. His hair is mussed, his lips bitten red. His eyes are hungry, almost ravenous. He smirks with a lazy sort of triumph, ready to scrape out some pained chirp. Nate can feel the stutter of his heartbeat as their pulse points press together, and he leans up, just as Jo pulls his collar to taunt him, and their lips fall together. 

Jo’s grip relaxes, and Nate’s hand finds its way under his shirt, tracing rivulets of abs he never remembered being so defined. Jo groans against him, buckling against his touch, and Nate wants to swallow every little sound. 

“You’re still such a brat.” Nate muses, later, as Jo’s fingers pool curiously over a slight bruise he’d pressed over Nate’s ribs. Jo makes half a noise of acknowledgment and brushes his thumb over the soft, tender part of the bruise. Nate sucks in a breath between his teeth at the pressure, and swats Jo’s hand away. Jo, for his part, moves away from the bruise and lets his hand rest in the impromptu cushion of Nate’s abs. 

“Yeah.” Jo agrees, cheerfully, this corner of his mouth resolving into another smirk. “You missed it.” 

Nate threads their hands together over his stomach, squeezes Jo’s palm softly, and doesn’t disagree. 

Jo has to visibly stop himself from laughing, but he doesn’t move his hand. He leans over to press a kiss to the corner of Nate’s mouth. “I miss you so fucking much.” He murmurs quietly. 

Nate squeezes his hand again. “I miss you too.” He admits, easily, but Jo shakes his head. 

“You don’t know how much I fucking miss you.” Jo says again, his voice strained, his eyes closed. Nate tries to rub slow circles into his palm to steady him. “You get to go back to a team that loves you, teammates, friends who care about you. They hate me, Nate. They all hate me so much. And I deserve it.” 

Nate halts his movements, and tries not to let his voice falter when he says, “They don’t hate you.” Jo laughs, and pulls his hand away to run it through his hair. 

“But I do deserve it?” He asks. Nate winces, and tries to protest, heart heavy in his chest, but nothing comes out. He wants to tell Jo that he’s the best friend, the best player, the person any team would be lucky to need, but he was the one who didn’t show up to practices, he was the one who fought and whined and squandered every chance he got with Tampa. But Nate can’t say that, none of it, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

Jo huffs, and smiles at Nate. Moonlight filters in through the curtains to half-illuminate his face, and it’s only now that Nate realizes just how tired he is, to the hilt and the bone. “Sometimes I think about finding a demon, making a deal.” He admits, and Nate freezes. 

Nate has heard a lot about demons, coming up through the Q, stories about boys with brimstone on the blades of their sticks and blasphemy settled into their wrist shots. He hears about boys who burn bright, burn fast, burn hard, and burn out, run into the league on a rocket and are left charred to the bone. 

Some people think Sid sold his soul, the boy from Cole Harbour who became the best hockey player in the world couldn’t have come from anywhere but the back alley deals of the darkest kinds of magic, but anyone who knows him knows better knows the sacrifice he settled into his shoulders isn’t the weight of damnation, but a different burden entirely. 

Dutchy says he’s blessed, and Nate is too. Nate sort of thinks he’s full of shit. 

A good Nova Scotian boy doesn’t consort with demons, and Nate is nothing if he’s not a good Nova Scotian boy. 

“You can’t.” Nate grits out through his teeth. “It wouldn’t be worth it, giving up so much just for that, just for me. It’s not worth it.” I’m not worth it, he leaves unsaid. Jo smiles at him again, with too many teeth, and the moonlight catches his eye. 

“You have no idea how much you’re worth, Nathan MacKinnon.” 

//

Before the season starts, he meets Tyson, Gabe, and EJ at a Dairy Queen downtown, mostly because Tyson has made it into some kind of ritual and gets pouty if they try and go anywhere else. Nate, and the other two for sure, learned a long time ago that indulging Tyson was easier than dealing with his milkshake-related tantrums.

“We can’t even go to the nice Dairy Queen?” Gabe asks, scrunching his nose a little as he slides into the seat across from them. He’s wearing sunglasses indoors and a white hat with a polo, looking a little like a yuppie ready and willing to get overcharged for weed by one of his dad’s clients’ teenage sons. EJ is wearing a weird metallic looking scarf that’s probably way too warm for the weather, but he’s still managing to pull it off. For his part, Nate put on a Broncos cap. Tyson, of course, made absolutely no effort to disguise himself, or the fact that he’s blatantly staring at Gabe’s arms whilst inhaling a banana split Blizzard.

“There are no nice Dairy Queens.” Nate deadpans, stirring his Blizzard a little. EJ snorts behind his scarf. It’s still way too thick to drink, though that didn’t stop Tyson. 

“Nathan, I would not have you blaspheme in mine presence, methanks.” Tyson says righteously, in a way that is only slightly undercut by the fact that he’s lapping at an ice cream covered spoon between every word and that Gabe clearly can’t take his eyes off of his mouth.

“Methanks?” EJ repeats gleefully, one eyebrow raised. 

Nate claps a hand over Tyson’s arm to keep him from launching himself at EJ and causing another Blizzard fight at 9pm a week before the preseason. “You really chose the shittiest DQ though. We should’ve gone to the Wadsworth one.” Nate says, frankly. “Both of the signs out front are broken.” The D in Dairy Queen and the L in the Open Late sign were completely burnt out, and the N in Open was flickering so wildly they could catch it out of the corners of their eyes from here. “And those youths running the front are definitely trying to figure out which of us is the hottest.” 

“They definitely think it’s me.” EJ pipes up with a wide, toothless grin. “Also, good job saying ‘youths.’ You and all the other septuagenarians are really keeping up with the lingo.”

Nate rolls his eyes, and flips EJ off. EJ just winks back, and goes back to his ice cream. 

“I told you,” Tyson explains, swallowing another chunk of ice cream from his cheeks like a chipmunk. “They always give extra cheesecake bits here.” 

“You didn’t even get the cheesecake.” Gabe reminds him. He’s finally started on his own Blizzard. Tyson glares at him. 

“Yeah, that’s why I made Nate get it, and he’s gonna share with me.” Tyson nudges him on the shoulder with his knuckles. “You’re gonna share with me, right Dogg?”

Nate looks at Tyson for a moment, and considers. “Nope,” he responds. Then, he takes his spoon, digs it in, making sure to get a big chunk of cheesecake with it, and takes a big bite of it in Tyson’s stricken face.

“Dogg!” Tyson exclaims, betrayed, and the noise he makes doesn’t seem entirely human. Nate takes another bite. 

He takes a few more, making sure to highlight how much cheesecake he’s eating until Tyson is sufficiently cowed into a sputtering mess that EJ is delighted by, before rolling his eyes and pushing the rest of it towards Tyson. 

“There goes my summer diet plan.” Nate sighs, suddenly aware of how much sugar he’d just eaten and having flashbacks to high school nutrition. 

“Aw shaddup.” Tyson says with his mouth still full. He taps the back of his hand against Nate’s stomach. “You’re an absolute unit. You’re gonna kill it next season.”

“We’re all going to kill it next season.” Gabe echoes, in his most captainly voice. 

“You think so?” Nate asks. 

“Yeah, you’ve gotta set a good example for the Youths.” EJ chimes in, smiling cheekily at him. Nate sticks his tongue out him. “Oh, real mature. Immaturity is a finable offense.” 

“Quiet Johnson, Nate’s the most mature.” Tyson comes to Nate’s defense, and Nate bumps his shoulder companionably. “He’s the best and most generous friend. It’s like that sign says: ‘Open N-n-n-n-nate!’” Tyson finishes with a flourish of his spoon, and looks all together pleased with his own joke, at least until it registers with Gabe, who starts laughing so hard in the middle of a drink that he spills it across the table, and all over Tyson. 

Tyson makes a noise like a dying giraffe doing some approximation of what sounds like Gabe’s name, and Gabe is still laughing at Tyson’s stupid joke, and now EJ is laughing too, at Tyson instead of with him. Nate’s laughing too, even as the wide eyed teenage girls manning the counter show up with some paper towels ready to help pad Tyson and whoever else needs it clean. 

Nate can’t help but think, sitting in a shitty Dairy Queen with the neon lights burned out, surrounded by his friends, that 2016 really might be their year. 

//

They stop at a red light, even with the streets of suburban Denver deserted in the waning hours of the night. Tyson has his feet up on the dashboard as he polishes off the rest of Nate’s Blizzard with as little dignity as possible with one hand, and fiddles with connecting his phone to Nate’s car’s Bluetooth.

“God, I love blackberries.” Tyson says, and Nate glances over at him from where he’s dragging his thumb over a purple stain on his lip and running his tongue over it, like the gross monster he is. 

“You know,” Nate chimes in, remembering something his mom told him once when they went out blackberry picking when he was a kid. “If you eat blackberries after September, the devil spits on them.” 

“That’s disgusting, Dogg.” Tyson says, cramming another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. The light turns green, and he taps something on his phone as Nate moves them forward again. 

“No Pearl Jam in my car, Tyson.” Tyson pouts, and rolls his eyes, tapping again, and there’s a mix of building strings and synthesizer baselines. “Oh hell yeah,” Nate says, bobbing his head in time with the beat. “Flashing Lights is the best travel song of all time, hands down.” 

“Nah,” Tyson says, scrunching his nose up a little, but he doesn’t change the song. “It’s the best travel song if you’re on a train.” 

Nate scoffs. Tyson barely did his own driving, let alone train rides. “When have you ever listened to this song on a train? When was the last time you were on a train?”

“Fuck you, I’m on trains all the time.” 

“Getting trains run on you isn’t the same thing, Tys.” Tyson punches him in the shoulder, so devoid of actual malice that it feels like the bare rap of knuckles against Nate’s skin. 

“Whatever Dogg, I’m going to show you sometime.” Tyson huffs, pointing the straw of the Blizzard at him like a promise. 

“I’ll hold you to that.” Nate says, fully aware that Tyson’s going to forget about this by tomorrow when he gets a new fixation like building a tiny house in his backyard or remembering that swans can be gay, and then come back to it months later. He’d sort of figured out how Tyson worked, by now. They hit another long red light. “Hey.” 

“Hmm?” Tyson stops from where he’s talking about trains or Kardashians or whatever, looking up at Nate curiously from where he’s finishing off the dregs of the Blizzard. 

“You really think we’ll make it this year? Without…” Nate trails at the tense of Tyson’s shoulders, how he sets his drink down. 

“You know, I think Roy wanted me to take a demon?” Tyson says, quietly. Nate’s eyes widen. 

“No shit? I mean—” Nate thinks about it, for a second. Sakic didn’t want anything to do with demons, so they kept the prospect of deals far away from the Avalanche when Roy signed on, but…they’d all heard the stories about Roy. Nate had played the Remparts, all those years ago, all those brittle boys with wide, tired eyes who were always looking over their shoulder for something creeping up behind them. 

“He said, if I was going to drag down this team, I might as well do something useful.” Tyson shrugs, his shoulders crowded in on himself. Nate imagines it. Tyson giving up some part of himself: his heart, his soul; hollowing himself out to nothing. Tyson’s smiling, and Nate can’t stand it. Can’t stand seeing Tyson smile and know there’s nothing behind it. Nate tightens his grip on the wheel and pulls over to the side of the road, in front of some quiet house with a half-done roof around two blocks from Tyson’s place. 

“Whoa,” Tyson says, peering out the window. “You finally murdering me, Dogg? I wanted to at least have an ice cream cake before I died. Can we swerve back real qui—” 

“God, Brutes your diet is—” Nate cuts himself off and shakes his head. He tries to look as serious as possible, which is a weird feeling, with Tyson. “Don’t mess with demons, okay? It’s not worth it.” He runs his hands through his hair, and glances to where Tyson is staring back at him with wide eyes. “You’re my best friend, asshole. It’s not worth—” You, he doesn’t finish. The silence hangs between them, heavy in the mountain air.

“It’s okay, Nate.” Tyson finally says. “I won’t. I know what happens when you fuck with that shit.” He puts a hand on Nate’s shoulder, and Nate leans into his touch. He squeezes Nate’s shoulder and he smiles at him, but he doesn’t elaborate. Nate lets out a breath, and lays back in his seat. 

“You’d need a whole bunch of demons to whip you into shape with the way you eat anyway.” He grumbles. 

“You say that like whipping’s not a selling point, baby.” Tyson waggles his eyebrows and smirks.

“Blizzard revoked, friendship over, you’re disgusting.” Nate growls, and he lunges at Tyson, trying to snatch the Blizzard from Tyson as he quickly swerves to start shoveling the rest of it in his mouth as quickly as possible. 

“Don’t kinkshame me Nathan MacKinnon!” Tyson yells, mouth half full of cheesecake bits. “Don’t you kinkshame me!” 

By the time Nate gets home, he’s sticky, covered in melted ice cream, and it’s almost midnight. His phone is still buzzing, no doubt Tyson complaining about Nate being a kinkshamer with no context and EJ accusing him of being a furry again. Nate leans his shoulder against the inside of his front door, taking a moment as his dogs poke their heads out into the hallway to rush him, and he lets himself relax. And he realizes he’s happier than he’s been, in a while. 

// 

The preseason starts, and Nate is stronger than he’s ever been, and they win, and win, and win. They win their first game at home, and Nate meets EJ’s eyes across the ice in OT, and they get Gabe to shovel it in right past Flower’s shoulder—and they beat the Stanley Cup champions too. He passes Sid around the locker room after the game, and his smile’s bittersweet enough to be satisfying. 

And then the wind gets knocked out of them like a gut punch. They flip the Blizzard, and they’ve gotta try and catch it before it all falls down and splatters on the linoleum. They start to lose, and lose, and lose, and lose. They win one in every four, scraping by every time.

They’re in the blueberry alternates for a game against Dallas at home, which would in any other season be a big thing, but everyone knows before they even get out on the ice that there’s more people there for Dallas than there are for them. EJ sidles up to him in the locker room while Nate is shrugging on his jersey, smiling that easy, toothless grin. Nate glances up at him. The color sort of looks good on him, he notes. 

“You know what they say about blueberries after Labor Day?” EJ asks him, balancing on the balls of his feet in a way that makes him loom over Nate on the bench. 

“You think the devil’s been spitting on us?” Nate asks. He remembers, vaguely, that it’s blackberries, but EJ smiles a little wider, and he decides not to correct him. “It would explain a lot.” 

“Good thing we’re playing the Stars. Wouldn’t want Taylor Hall hocking a big one at me.” 

“You could take Hallsy.” Nate affirms. EJ preens a little. 

“Damn right I could. Protect you from big, bad Taylor Hall and all his spit.” Nate smiles and something loosens in his chest, feeling lighter than he had in a while. 

“Don’t spit on Seguin, okay? I think that’s a misconduct.” EJ laughs. 

“I’ll try.” He says wryly. He catches Nate’s eye, and licks his lip. “You’re gonna kick his ass though, right?” 

“Thought that was your job.” Nate responds cheekily, though he nods. 

“You really make me do all the work around here, MacKinnon.” EJ fake groans, runs a hand through his hair. “Running me ragged without any compensation could be a fineable offense.” 

“You’re so corrupt.” Nate snorts, pushing at EJ’s arm. The slightest touch is steadying, and warm. EJ half-recoils dramatically, though not enough to move Nate’s hand away.

“Excuse me, I’ve got scout’s honor.” EJ proclaims doing a sign of the cross with his left hand, so badly that even Nate, who hasn’t gone to church in years, knows he’s doing it wrong for effect. 

“You were never a Boy Scout.” Nate shoots at him. EJ snorts, patting his chest with his hand. 

“No, but I’d look good in the shorts.” Nate can’t dispute that, so he just kind of punches him in the arm. 

The Stars score in the first five minutes, and then again in the second, even with EJ throwing himself into every play to make sure they don’t get a single shot on goal in two power plays. Nate’s jaw is set on edge as they get yet another penalty, the crowd raucous and rowdy, almost entirely for the wrong side. 

Nate’s watching them barrel down the ice from the bench, palms pressed against the bench as he watches EJ pushing himself to keep up with Seguin. He counts down the seconds waiting for the coaching staff to call out the next unit when Seguin takes a slapshot. It whistles through the air, and EJ jumps in front of it, the puck disappearing past his leg as he crumples onto the ice. 

Nate springs up and he sees Tyson and Gabe do the same, can already hear Gabe calling for Bednar, for the refs. And then, EJ pushes himself up, shaky on one leg, stuck in front of the net. EJ is clearly struggling to stay standing even as he tries to put himself back in the play. He’s limping on his skates and he’s stuck as the Stars keep piling on towards the net. 

“He’s gotta get out of there.” Nate mutters. He’s got one hand on the boards already, eyes glued to EJ, looking like he’s killing himself with every movement, and no one seems like they’re going to stop it. “We’ve got to get him the fuck out of there!” Nate’s heart is pounding in his ears. They finally call for a change, but EJ can barely get out of the slot, let alone to the bench. 

Finally, Comes shows up, saying something about how bad EJ looks, but Nate ignores him, barely getting the signal before he’s launching himself up over the boards and onto the ice, throwing himself towards the puck. 

“Clear it!” Nate calls out, sideswiping a Star to push the puck towards his teammates. It flies down the ice, and finally, finally, the whistle blows. EJ staggers towards the bench, and Nate goes to meet him, keeps the door open for him. 

He looks wrecked as he’s ushered into the locker room, and Nate watches him go. 

They close out the period as quickly as possible, and Nate’s heart is a stone sunk in his chest. They’ve blocked out the trainers’ room to the media, to everyone, but it doesn’t stop them from hearing the screaming echo through the halls.

“Fuck!” Nate says, throwing his towel in his stall with a lot more force than the towel itself deserves. His muscles are tense and corded, every bit of him taking each scream as a body blow across the bow. 

“You can say that again,” Gabe agrees from next to him. His eyes are bloodshot and wild, everything about him haphazardly indignant. 

“Fuck,” Nate says again, glumly. There’s another noise from the trainers’ room, and they all wince collectively. 

“We’re done.” Dutchy says from their other side. He glances towards the blocked off training room and shakes his head. “That’s it.” 

“Shut up, we’re not—” Gabe starts, but he’s punctuated by another reverberating scream. 

“We’re done.” Dutchy says again, pained, hollow, and distant.

“You’re so full of shit.” Nate tells him frankly. Dutchy makes a dumb face like he means to protest, but he doesn’t say anything.

Part of Nate’s a little glad when the buzzer sounds and the Stars blank them, because at least that means it’s over. Most of him is just kind of numb. 

//

“They’re saying it’s a broken fibula, so I’ll be on crutches for a while.” EJ says, his voice heady with painkillers, and slightly tinny over the phone. He pauses. “I’m gonna hit Tyson with them.” 

“Dude,” Nate admonishes. “He’ll cry.” 

“Good, that’s what I want.” 

Nate rolls his eyes. “Oh, is that what you want?” He chuckles anyway, settling himself down up against his headboard.

“You know what I want,” EJ says, voice husky enough that it sends a shiver down Nate’s spine. “Hey, where are you now?” Nate shakes his head. 

“M’in bed.” Nate says, slapping his pillow to punctuate it. EJ lets out an audible breath on the other side of the call. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I’m folding laundry,” Nate turns back to the pile of laundry on the bed next to him that he’d been planning to fold when EJ called, and of course EJ was more important. He picks up a shirt and folds it in half, and then into fourths. 

EJ laughs incredulously. “Nathan MacKinnon doing laundry by himself? Maybe I should get hurt more often.” Nate looks at the shirt he’d folded. It didn’t look nearly as neat as in stores, or when his mom folded it, or whatever, but it was all right. Still—

“Me doing laundry is not a fair trade for your body, bro.” Nate tells him. To be honest, he hadn’t even actually done this laundry. His mom had done it when she was here, like a month ago, and they’d just been in the basket this whole time until he decided to fold them last week and dumped them on his bed. He’d actually been sleeping on his unfolded laundry for a few days now, but he wasn’t about to tell EJ any of that. 

“Oh?” EJ starts, and there’s a weird edge to his voice that’s probably just the painkillers. He pauses and Nate takes the opportunity to start folding one of his old Mooseheads shirts. “What would you give me for my body?” Nate drops the shirt. “Hey, what are you wearing?” 

“Dude?” Nate’s voice is probably too high pitched for low heat pooling in his stomach. “Are you really trying to have phone sex with me on crutches?” 

“I’m not on crutches right now!” EJ protests, weakly. “Okay fine, I probably shouldn’t jack off with a broken leg anyway.” Nate knows he’s joking—he thinks he’s joking—but the idea of EJ jacking off to his voice, those big hands ghosting absently over his thighs with Nate on the other end of the line isn’t exactly unappealing. Nate shifts in his place on the bed, suddenly too hot. “Another time.” EJ says, and Nate flushes even more. 

“Hey, did Dutchy wait until I was off the ice before asking for a trade or did he have the decency to wait until I was being carted off to the hospital?” EJ continues conversationally, and Nate instantly sobers. 

“He’s sick of losing.” Nate says carefully, his hand tightening over the unfolded shirt. “We all are.”

“So did you ask for a trade too?” EJ asks pointedly. 

“What? Of course not.” Nate tells him, pulling the shirt towards his chest hurriedly. He’s sick of losing too, of course, sick of taking shots that don’t connect, of trying to push himself to be faster and stronger and getting nowhere with it. 

“Right.” EJ says dryly. “Exactly.” He has a point.

“I’d never do that to you or the team.” Nate says decisively. “I’d never give up on us.” Colorado had its problems, but it was the team that drafted him. It had Tyson, and Gabe, and EJ there waiting for him every year. This was team that picked him before anyone else, and he wasn’t just going to give up on it, wasn’t going to let them call this a bust. 

“Hell yeah, that’s hot.” EJ lets out a breath between his teeth, and then he groans. “Meds are kicking in. I’ve gotta rest these bones.” He groans again, like he’s stretching himself out. “We’ll have to have phone sex later, MacKinnon.” 

“Yeah, later.” Nate finds himself saying, and EJ kind of purrs in agreement in a way that goes straight to Nate’s dick so effectively that it’s kind of embarrassing. It’s only until later that Nate realizes exactly what he said, and he buries himself in his half-folded laundry pile. 

// 

For all that Dutchy was and is full of shit, he’s not entirely wrong when he says they’re done. Without EJ, they keep losing, and without EJ, it’s a horror show. 

It’s Montreal that does it. 

Playing in Montreal is awful on good days. The players are acidic and the fans are worse, in a city steeped in demons. There’s so much history here, on the edge of damnation: curses wrapped up in the rafters, passed through with every breath, only anchored by the careful blessings baked into the ice around Carey Price. Officially, there’s nothing of that sort in the Bell Centre, but it’s so palpable here that even someone as unattuned to it as Nate, who only played in the Q, and not even in Quebec, can feel how the city seeps in. 

Jo always thought there was something beautiful about it, that you could find comfort in navigating the dark spaces, but Nate never really saw it. 

It’s Iggy’s 1500th game, and they blow it for him. 

They get scored on six times in the first before he, Z, and Comes manage to get anything past Price, and they stagger off the ice heaving and broken. 

And it doesn’t stop. Pacioretty comes out of it with a dick trick, and they’re 10-1 when Emelin blindsides Colborne with a low hit and Iggy launches himself at him, earning an unsportsmanlike for his trouble, for this team. 

Some 1500th.

They’re laughing at them as they slink off the ice, and out of the Bell, and Nate can’t help there’s something clawing at his heels. 

They’ve got to go straight to Toronto by morning, so he figures there’d be no time to do it here. It’d be easier to do it back home, without the threat of the Canadian media shadowing his every step. 

After the game, he calls Patrick Roy. 

“That bad, huh?” Roy says first thing, a smugness to his voice that can only come with watching someone fail. 

“Where’s the demon in Denver?” Nate asks, with no preamble. “There’s got to be one, right? If you wanted Tyson to make a deal?” Roy makes a noise of gleeful surprise. 

“Oh it’s _that_ bad, huh?” Roy teases. “Did your dead weight friend finally realize how more useful he’d be as demon fodder?” 

“Where is it?” Nate repeats through gritted teeth. “Just give me an address.” He wants to hang up, wants to tell him how wrong Roy was about Tyson, about all of them. 

Roy says something in French, chuckles softly. “Be careful, MacKinnon. Demons aren’t toys to make you stronger. They’re not protein powder.” 

“I know what I’m doing.” Nate snaps, annoyed. He lets out a breath. “I’ve made up my mind.” 

Roy laughs again, like he did when a reporter asked him a question that skirted just too closely to the truth of things.

Roy gives him the address to an abandoned church in Windermere. 

//

They eke out a win in Toronto, and Nate wonders if they won’t need this. But then they get back to Denver. They get into the Pepsi Center, half-empty most nights and filled with opposing colors on the others, and they lose, and lose again. 

He and Tyson are checking in with one of the security officers on their way into the rink, an older woman named Marge, a transplant from Wisconsin with frizzy hair and a smile that’s gotten more and more strained as the season has gone on. Tyson’s asking her about her kids, like he does, and she’s talking about how one of her sons is thinking of picking up soccer. 

“Is he not doing hockey anymore?” Tyson asks, with a frown, and Nate looks up. 

Marge tries to wave it off. “He’s just thinking of trying something out for the summer. He’s still a hockey boy at heart.” Tyson seems to take this at face value, but Nate shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t blame him.” He says quietly. Tyson looks up at him quizzically, raps his ankle against Nate’s to try to get his attention. Nate ignores him to continue. “We haven’t exactly been the best examples lately. I mean, we’re awful.” 

“Oh, no, no!” Marge says, waving her hands. “We’re all so proud of you boys.” She tries, and she smiles at them, but it rings hollow. Nate turns away with a curt goodbye, heading towards the locker room. 

Tyson calls after him, rushing to catch up after a more proper goodbye to Marge, swipes at Nate’s side to bunch his fingers in Nate’s jacket, pulling him against one of the concrete walls of an adjacent hallway. “What the fuck was that, Dogg?” Tyson whispers at him harshly. “You can’t just be like that to people.” 

Nate looks at him, eyes dark. “She shouldn’t have to pity us. We embarrass her, and her son, and all of them. They shouldn’t have to pretend.” Tyson loosens his grip. 

“That’s not true.” Tyson says, voice weak. “No one’s pretending, Nate.” Nate rolls his eyes. 

“We can’t even go into our own player’s room, Tys.” Nate reminds him, and Tyson crumples, letting go of Nate and letting his hands fall at his sides. The day after EJ’s injury and it came out that Dutchy had requested a trade, he’d packed up all his stuff and moved into the player’s room without giving any of them a chance to react. 

“Just because Dutchy’s afraid of us looking at his dick it doesn’t mean you have to be a dick!” Tyson raises his hands exasperatedly. Nate just shakes his head again. 

“It’s embarrassing, Tyson.” Nate says again, and Tyson doesn’t have anything to say to that. 

// 

It’s late when he goes to find the demon. 

The sidewalks are lightly coated in snow, and the ice fog rolls in, chasing people off the streets with bitter touch. Nate hasn’t seen a soul for a while as he heads into Windermere, where the folksy suburbs disappear into the gleaming nouveau chromium of the city. He checks the address on his phone and parks across from where the church should be. 

There’s a whole bunch of construction scaffolds around the church, covered in tarps to make an attempt at keeping out the snow. He thought this place was supposed to be abandoned. If it weren’t for the bell tower, sticking out from the scaffolding, Nate might not have even recognized it as a church. 

He takes a deep breath, steels himself, taps twice on his dashboard, and gets out of the car. The fog is thicker outside of the car with only a couple of dim street lamps illuminating the sidewalks. There’s a patch of dead grass in front of the church, punctuated with dead trees. 

Nate rubs his hands together, cups them, and breaths to warm his face, tightening his scarf as he moves towards the church. 

“Hello?” He calls out, softly. There’s no answer, and Nate doesn’t really expect one. Moonlight gleams off the stained glass windows from the parts near the top not covered in tarp, and there’s a hole about eye level. Nate pushes some of the tarp away to peer in, and it’s dark, but he can make out some shapes—bright, modern furniture. Nate curses. He should’ve asked Roy for more details, but to be fair he didn’t think ask Roy how to find the demon if its lair was being gentrified. 

Nate pushes off from the scaffold, sending some snow flurrying off the top. This was so stupid, he thinks, kicking at the sidewalk. He turns back towards his car to leave, when he sees something gleaming out of the corner of his eye. 

“They’re turning it into a condo.” A lilting voice, almost familiar, cuts through the fog. “Leave it to Denver to chase away even its demons for upscale housing, hm?” Nate turns, to find himself facing down a lithe, compact figure in a red sequin suit, entirely unsuited for the weather. 

“Jo?” Nate chokes out, taking a step back. That’s Jonathan Drouin, all over, the same lazy smirk and effortlessly mussed hair, but with all the warmth drained from his dark brown eyes. 

“Is that his name?” Jo-but not Jo-asks, his chuckle a scraping of metal over the fog. “You’ve got a very pretty demon.” 

“You’re the demon?” Nate asks, arms tight as his side. The demon smiles with all together too many teeth. 

“Oui.” He says, voice like svelte. “Oh, this boy knows French.” He levels a look at Nate, deep and boring under his skin. “But you don’t?” 

Nate shakes his head. “No, I don’t.” 

“Good, good.” The demon waves his hand, taking a step towards Nate. “Did you want to fuck him?” 

Suddenly, the demon is close, leaning into him with too familiar breath against his jaw. He’s not touching him, but it’s close enough that Nate thinks the demon can hear his heart beating out of his chest.

“You’ve already fucked him, big, saucy boy! Was it rough? Did he scream for you?” The demon purrs a hair’s breadth from his neck, and laughs. “Do you want him to?” 

Nate swallows, stepping back from the demon. “No, no, I wanted—I play hockey.” He had it all ready, everything he wanted, but standing here with the demon in front of him, wearing his first love’s face like a suit, it all falls away. 

“Haven’t had one of those in a while, but I thought I might, soon enough.” The demon laughs again, bitten off and rusty. “Not having a good year, are we love?” The demon steps forward again, closing any space Nate had stolen between them, stopping just short of touching. “Did you want a Cup? I’m afraid you’ve already made that arithmetically impossible this year. Next year, I could work with.” It’s weird, so weird, how much this demon sounds like Jo, has his voice, but says things Jo would never say. 

Nate thinks about it. Did he want a Cup? He thinks about Sid, with his Cup rings and the city that loved him, the town with his name on the sign, but not Nate’s. Did he want the demon to just hand him that on a silver platter? He thinks about his team, about Gabe, and EJ, and Tyson. So good, so wanting, so deserving of a Cup they earned themselves. They were all so close. They just needed a push. Nate takes a deep breath.

“I just want us to be better.” He says, and the demon looks at him with those big, empty eyes. 

“How much do you want it?” 

“With all my heart.” 

The demon licks his lips. “With all your heart?” 

Nate exhales, musters all his conviction, and nods. “With all my heart.”

The demon crooks a smile, with too many teeth. “That’s a start.”

He claps his hands together, and Nate is suddenly off balance, his knees starting to give way beneath him. The demon swerves and grabs his hand, grasping it tight, and Nate hisses when the demon’s skin burns against his. The demon pulls him in closer and closer, and the heat moves under Nate’s skin pooling in his chest. One hand snakes under Nate’s shirt and he yelps as the demon digs his nails into his chest. 

“Here’s the deal: Your team will get better, and you will lose your heart to a devil.” The burning sensation yawns inside of Nate, and the demon’s eyes lock in with his, no longer that deep brown but a searing yellow. “Do you accept my terms?” 

Nate thinks about the team. He thinks about Tyson and Gabe, about the city that believed in him. He thinks about EJ, thinks about him screaming. He thinks about his heart, and he thinks about everyone he loves. He figures out which each is worth. “Do you accept my terms?” The demon asks again, voice barely recognizable as Jo’s.

“I accept.” Nate says, the demon sears his heart between his fingers, and Nate burns.

The demon grips him tight and sears him out, licking flames over and under his skin, surging towards the hollow of his heart. For a second, Nate sees the demon’s form slip from Jo’s face, glimpses at something unknowable and yawning. 

And then just as suddenly as it started, it’s over. Nate’s on his hands and knees on the sidewalk in front of the church, coughing out into the snow. The demon wipes his hand on his pants, and offers it to Nate, who pushes himself up on shaky knees. 

“I don’t—I don’t have to sign anything?” Nate asks, his voice hoarse and smoky, pulled out from his chest. The demon scoffs and shakes his head. 

“A verbal contract works just as well for something like this. No fuss, no muss, no mess. Just business.” The demon adjusts the collar of his suit, the glimmering of the red sequin somehow brighter. “Once our deal is done, you’ll lose your heart to a devil. More than fair, no?” 

Nate stares at his hands, peers down at his own chest. There’s something dark curving up over his shirt collar. “You’ll really make us better?” He asks, voice small and soft. 

“On my honor.” The demon says, crossing his own heart perfectly. There’s the sound of a car suddenly, turning a corner. “Be seeing you, Mr. MacKinnon. I’ll be checking up on my investment.” 

The car rumbles past with a flash of headlights, Nate blinks, and the demon wearing Jo’s face is gone, leaving him alone in front of a church being turned into a condo. Nate staggers towards his car, a black mark on his chest winding around his heart like a vice. 

//

EJ asks him to come over before their next road trip, which was kind of a surprise. Not because EJ didn’t invite people over all that often, especially when you were part of that select few that already get to know where he lived, but because he had only been home for a few days, he didn’t ask anyone else, and it was kind of getting late, and that he’d made the request by Venmo-ing Nate twenty bucks at eleven at night and telling him: Bring me a Steak Nathan.

Nate flicks on the light on his bedside table and shoots EJ a quick text. 

Nate: Now ? 

EJ: Now

EJ couples it with a horse emoji and a gun emoji, which tells Nate he means business, so he figures he might as well go. 

So, Nate finds himself at a Denny’s on the way to EJ’s, avoiding eye contact with the spazzed out college student at the counter inhaling cups of coffee like her life depended on it while somehow doing some weird math next to circles. Vaguely, Nate wonders what he’d study if he wasn’t a hockey player. He scratches at his collarbone, right above his heart, and shakes his head. There’s nothing he can think of that would be worth as much as hockey ever was. 

Maybe he would’ve been an actor. 

The waitress calls for his order, and slides the Styrofoam containers towards him. “Careful, they’re hot.” She says, despite pushing them towards him without any indication that they were actually hot. She’s an older woman, with tired eyes and frizzy, natural hair. There’s a weird black mark around her wrist, like an odd half-bracelet tattoo. She smiles at him, warm and genuine. 

Nate feels compelled to give her a tip, and he’s not sure why he gives her a twenty for carryout that cost only slightly more, except that he feels like she should. “For your trouble,” he mutters, pushing the bill towards her. She starts to question, to thank him in turn, but as Nate steps forward to grab the food, her eyes flutter towards his chest and widen. Nate freezes.

Her smile turns wry, her eyes flash with something like sadness. “God bless you, child.” She says, quietly, and she looks like she’s about to say more when the college student waves over to get a refill of her coffee, and she’s forced to turn away. 

His phone vibrates, probably another impatient text from EJ, so Nate grabs the food and leaves, chasing all thoughts of college students and waitresses from his mind. 

“Denny’s?” EJ asks, one eyebrow raised. “Really?” Nate checks to make sure the cast is on the opposite leg, and bumps their shoulders together as he slides into the seat on the same side of the table, next to EJ.

“It was the only place I thought of that was open that served steak. If you wanted something date night fancy you should’ve said.” Nate shrugs, setting EJ’s container in front of him as he rolls his eyes. 

EJ grumbles a little, pouting as he slips his teeth in. “That’s a fine, you owe me a date.” He says. 

Nate blinks at him. He’s never quite sure if EJ is serious with this kind of thing. EJ’s almost never serious about anything he says, and it’s taken years of knowing him before Nate even thought he had a handle on it, but stuff like this—the weird flirting—always throws him for a loop. He wouldn’t mind taking EJ on a date, in the abstract sense, putting on a suit and going to a steakhouse and listening to him insult all the businessmen who wouldn’t touch a living cow if it cried money. “Might be too rich for my blood, Johnson.” Nate responds instead, and EJ makes a dismissive noise as he pops open his container. 

“Country fried?!” EJ hollers indignantly, wheeling around as much as he can to glare daggers at Nate. Nate opens his own container, to reveal a medium rare sirloin. Nate picks up one of the pieces of broccoli on the side with his fork and pops it in his mouth. 

“You dick.” EJ hisses at him, teeth gritted, eyeing Nate’s steak with undisguised jealousy as Nate begins to cut it up into bite sized pieces. “This is cruel and unusual torture. This is illegal. This. Is. Chicken.” 

Nate shrugs again. “You’ve really gotta be more specific, dude.” 

EJ scowls, sulking as he cuts petulantly into his chicken. “You’re the worst. I don’t know why anyone even likes you.” 

Nate ignores him, taking the first bite of his steak, really milking how good this $10 Denny’s steak is. EJ groans, and continues insulting him under his breath. “Stupid Canadian jokes aren’t even funny, awful taste in clothes and music and doesn’t even know anything about horses, too fucking big and broad and hot and good at hockey—”

“You think I’m hot?” Nate asks. EJ stalls his cutting. 

“What? No.” EJ scoffs. “I said snot. You’re full of gross snot. Disgusting, get away from me.” 

Nate beams at him. “You said I was hot,” He says in a half-singsong. “Erik Johnson thinks I’m hot. Tyson’s gonna freak—” 

“Whatever,” EJ says, turning his face away, and he might…actually be blushing. Nate has never actually seen EJ blush. He didn’t even know he knew how to be embarrassed. “You don’t have to make fun of me every time I shoot my shot, asshole.” 

Nate blinks. “Wait, what?” 

“You know what?” EJ starts, getting more and more indignant. “Yeah, I think you’re hot. I think about sucking your dick all the time, especially when you score goals, right out there on the ice. And I still do it, even though every time I think we’re getting somewhere, you fuck off. Tell Tyson that.” EJ pushes away from the table, trying to grab at his crutches from where they’re laying against the side. He’s having trouble trying to swing them around to pick himself up, and Nate takes the opportunity to get up and take a step towards him. “I don’t need your help to storm off!” EJ snaps. 

“I’m not trying to help you.” Nate says, leaning over EJ’s chair to kiss him. 

EJ makes a noise against his mouth, relaxing into the chair as Nate bears down his weight against him. He wraps a hand around the back of EJ’s neck to brace him, threads another in his hair. EJ groans as Nate starts to trace the seam of his lip with his tongue—

“Wait,” Nate says, pulling away slightly. EJ makes a noise of protest. “Take out your teeth.” He tells EJ. 

Breathless, EJ looks at him questioningly. 

“I want to kiss you without your teeth in, dumbass.” Nate explains with a sigh, tracing a circle into the back of EJ’s neck with his thumb.

Finally getting it, EJ takes his teeth out and sets them on the table, freeing Nate to lean back in and kiss him again. “That’s better.” Nate says over EJ’s mouth, letting his tongue explore the spaces of EJ’s mouth freely. EJ groans underneath him, fingernails pressing into the wood of the chair. 

One of EJ’s huge hands finds its way under Nate’s shirt, exploring the rigid planes of his abs and grasping at his pecs, one thumb rolling over his nipple before EJ goes back downwards. EJ swipes over Nate’s bottom lip with his tongue as he sneaks a hand under the waistband of Nate’s sweatpants to palm at the outline of his cock. 

Nate shivers against EJ’s lips at his touch, arching over EJ and moving one hand to brace himself over the chair, which quivers a little under their collective weight. EJ’s hand teases over the underside of Nate’s dick, dragging a thumb over the head like he’s memorizing its dimensions. EJ licks over the top of Nate’s mouth to pull away with a pop, hand still in Nate’s pants, and he looks at Nate with wide, wild eyes. “I’m going to suck your dick, MacKinnon.” EJ says, breathless, and his cock twitches in EJ’s grasp. EJ smirks at him. 

“Here?” Nate asks, voice heavy. EJ rolls his eyes. 

“No, not fucking here. Help me to my bed.” EJ commands, gesturing towards his crutches, and Nate suddenly remembers the cast around EJ’s broken leg. 

“Are you sure?” Nate asks, suddenly a little nervous. He looks over EJ, flushed and huge all over. “I can—” 

EJ rolls his eyes. “You’re not picking me up. I’m not Tyson. I’m 6’4”, 240 lbs, and I’ve got a broken leg. Just help me up.” EJ finishes, waving his hand towards the crutches, and Nate dutifully goes, helping him hoist himself up. He finally has to pull his hand away from Nate’s pants, which is disappointing, but the way EJ looks at him when he gets up, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue, kind of makes up for it. 

EJ is faster on crutches than Nate gave him credit for, herding him towards the downstairs bedroom. “Don’t you usually sleep upstairs?” Nate asks as they pass the stairs. 

“I’m on crutches and I’m horny, MacKinnon.” EJ explains, waving one crutch to hurry him up. “Did you want your dick sucked or not?” 

Nate hurries. They make their way into the bedroom and EJ instructs him to strip as he settles into a chair next to the bed to do the same. Nate shucks his shoes off first, and then his pants, setting them in a neat pile next to the bed. He’s about halfway through taking off his shirt, pulling at the shoulders, when he realizes. There’s something dark and inky black sticking out over his collarbone—and he really should’ve known that a deal this big would come with a mark. 

“What, you want to keep your shirt on?” EJ chirps as he pulls off his own shirt, revealing hard planes of pale muscle that Nate wants to trace over with his tongue. “You’re not the ugly teenager with bacne at the pool, c’mon, let me see.” 

Nate sighs, and bites the bullet. He pulls his shirt off and throws it with the rest of his clothes, and instantly he feels EJ’s eyes on him, admiring. He’s about to explain before EJ can ask, when he traces EJ’s gaze, which is focused hungrily on his abs down to his dick, but doesn’t seem to be lingering on the huge curse mark over Nate’s heart. 

Putting it out of his mind, Nate scrambles onto the bed, taking up his position with his back against the headboard. EJ sets his crutches to the side and just kind of falls over the bed, gripping Nate’s thighs to pull himself up between his legs. He has Nate hand him a couple pillows to prop up his braced leg. Nate lets him in, helps pull him up, one hand on his hip and the other on his shoulder, and EJ looks up at Nate, eyes shining and hungry. 

“If I stay like this, we’ll be good.” EJ tells him. “I know it’s fucking awkward but—” Nate angles down to kiss him, letting the rest of his words fall into a mumble against his lips. EJ sighs into his kiss, letting himself relax in Nate’s grip as he traces kisses over Nate’s jaw, down his neck. He lingers over Nate’s chest, for a second, and Nate’s heart skips a beat, but EJ doesn’t remark on anything, just moves in to lap at Nate’s nipple, drag over it with teeth and swirling tongue as one hand runs up and down Nate’s abs. 

EJ keeps up his pace as he moves down, tracing Nate’s abs with his tongue. He wraps one big hand around Nate’s dick, lazily stroking it until he reaches it. He swirls his tongue around the base of Nate’s cock, licking it from base to tip a couple times before he starts to lap the head with his tongue. He runs over the side of Nate’s thigh with his fingertips a couple times, inviting Nate to arch up his hips a little, fuck shallowly into EJ’s mouth. Nate keeps it slow enough to avoid jostling EJ’s leg, threads his hands into EJ’s hair to control their pace together. 

“God, EJ…” Nate groans, amazed at how easily his cock slides into EJ’s mouth. EJ laves his tongue over the underside of Nate’s cock, for a second, takes a deep breath, and swallows him down to the base. Nate chokes, his fingers tightening in EJ’s hair and against his shoulders as EJ starts to bob up and down his cock determinedly. 

EJ makes all sorts of wet, sloppy noises around Nate’s cock, little groans and moans as he tries to match Nate’s rhythm and keep his leg straight. Nate wants to go harder, sure EJ would normally be able to take it, but he lets EJ set the pace. Still, EJ speeds himself up, fucking his own mouth with Nate’s cock.

“Fuck, you’re good at this,” Nate finds himself saying, laying praise on EJ, who seems to eat it up smugly as he presses on, tracing the sides of Nate’s cock with his tongue as he’s buried deep in EJ’s throat. Soon enough, and Nate is sure it’s sooner than EJ would like, Nate finds himself bucking a little more into EJ’s throat, ready to come, and he tells EJ as much. 

Instead of relenting, EJ braces himself, pressing his hands into Nate’s thighs to pull Nate as deep as he can, and Nate comes down his throat, heaving as he slowly pulls out. EJ looks wrecked, eyes watery and lips puffy, and there’s a bit of Nate’s cum glossy on the corner of EJ’s mouth. Unconsciously, Nate leans over to wipe it off with his thumb, and presents it to EJ, who licks it off, lapping at Nate’s thumb and a couple of his fingers contentedly, wiping him clean. 

“How do I do you?” Nate asks, eyes wide, and EJ chuckles. He has Nate shove over, and turns onto his side, on his good leg, placing one pillow between his legs and the other between him and Nate. He tells Nate to kind of spoon him, Nate’s chest pressed up against his back, his hips and ass nestling comfortably against Nate’s dick, which actually kind of stirs again. Nate folds his legs back to make sure they don’t hit EJ’s and wraps his arm around to get a hand around EJ’s dick.

He kisses the back of EJ’s neck as he jacks EJ off, telling him how good he was, how hot he was, as he peppers kisses over EJ’s shoulder blades. One of Nate’s hands, the one where EJ had just had in his fingers in his mouth, wanders down to ghost over EJ’s hole. Nate wishes he could eat him out, open him up, lick into him until he’s completely boneless and begging for it, but that probably wouldn’t be good for EJ’s leg, so he satisfies himself by pressing his still wet thumb against and into EJ’s hole as he stripes EJ’s dick. EJ gasps, and suddenly, he’s spilling cum all over himself in long, scattered bursts. Nate runs his hand over EJ’s stomach and chests, staining his fingers and smearing cum all over EJ as he catches his breath.

“You got me so dirty, MacKinnon.” EJ says, still short of breath, as they settle into each other. “You’ll have to give me a bath later.”

“You got yourself dirty.” Nate reminds him. EJ elbows him in the face. 

“Two for elbowing, Colorado Number Six.” Nate sputters, and EJ laughs. 

“When I get this stupid cast off,” EJ says, pressing back to push his ass against Nate’s cock. “First thing you’re doing is fucking me.” Nate sighs happily at the thought, and pulls EJ closer. 

“Scout’s honor.” Nate says, pressing a kiss between EJ’s shoulder blades before he drifts off to sleep. 

//

Sometimes when the New Year rolled around, especially as Nate was getting older and playing more and more around the New Year, it just felt like any other day, where all that changed were the numbers on his phone. Similarly, there was something about coming into a new year without a soul that felt a little anticlimactic. 

Nate wasn’t sure what he expected out of selling his soul. He didn’t meet anyone else like that waitress. He’d met a few players, growing up, who everyone said made deals, and you could usually tell. They switched between raggedly tired and unnecessarily aggressive on a dime, always kept an eye behind their backs and jumped at their own shadows. 

Maybe it was because Nate had actually sold his heart instead of his soul—which really didn’t seem like that much of a distinction, but Nate wasn’t all that good at this metaphorical stuff on the best of days--but nothing really seemed all that different. Babies didn’t cry when they saw him, at least more than usual. His dogs still came up to him begging for treats like normal. There were no avenging slayers or soothsayers appearing out of dark alleyways to strike him down during his morning jogs. And he hadn’t actually expected all that, not really. 

But it really felt like he hadn’t lost anything at all. Which might have explained why they were still fucking losing. They were still scraping by wins by the skin of their teeth, if at all, and most of the time they were either driven out of their own barn or laughed out of everyone else’s. 

The locker room is tense and almost desaturated, what with EJ gone and Dutchy slinking back to the player’s room every night like making eye contact with any one of them would taint him with their mediocre blasphemy and send him straight to hell—which, honestly, might have been a pretty sick power for the demon to give him, except the demon hadn’t actually given him jack shit. 

They come up on bye week after dropping nine in a row, the Flyers taking them apart in a shutout to cap it all off. 

Most of the team, if they can even call it that anymore, is ready to get out of there weeks before, and even Gabe and Tyson seem sort of relieved to get the break. Nate feels like he’s coming apart at the seams only held together by the inky black mark stamped on his chest like a mocking promise, left unfulfilled. He avoids Gabe and Tyson on his way back from the airport as they try to wrangle him for pity drinks or Blizzards or whatever the hell they wanted to do to pretend they weren’t all fucking failures and he finds himself driving a set of familiar suburban streets. 

Nate skirts the speed limit, running on pure adrenaline as he finds himself on the side of the street in front of the church turned condo. It’s different in the daylight, sunlight soaking companionably into the brownstone, the scant light coming through the clouds shining in inviting colors off the stained glass. There’s actually a construction crew milling about the scaffolding, carrying in slabs of wood and paying no mind to the hockey player across the street, muffling his frustrated screams into his dashboard. 

He hunches over the wheel, his breathing shaky as he slams his fists through the air once, then twice, then three times. His scarf comes loose with the motion, sliding half off his neck to start pooling into his lap, and Nate snatches it off, throwing it towards the passenger seat without a second thought. 

There’s a flash of red out of the corner of his eye, and a calloused hand swipes the scarf out of the air. 

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” The demon says dryly, wrapping the scarf around himself. Nate turns to look at him. The scarf is bigger on his—on Jo’s—frame, sitting snugly over his mouth. Nate is reminded, suddenly, of walking around Halifax with Jo, whining about how cold it was and never even wearing a jacket. It’s not Jo, of course. It’s the demon, in his ridiculous red sequin suit, stealing Nate’s scarf, putting his feet up on Nate’s dashboard. “You didn’t have to come all this way just to see me, you know. I can come to you, now.”

“Where have you been then?!” Nate snaps, jaw set and teeth gritted. “I thought we had a deal. It’s been a month and we still—” 

“Patience, Iago.” The demon says, holding up one finger. He smiles in that way of his, gleaming and hungry. “You asked for your team to be better.” The demon quirks his head, lips bitten red peeking out from the edges of the scarf. “You’ve got to hit rock bottom first.” 

Nate’s eyes widen, and he scowls. “Feels like rock bottom to me.” He mutters, shrugging away from the demon’s curious gaze. 

“Think so?” The demon asks, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I’d be careful what you wish for. In my experience, it can always be worse.” 

“If you don’t hold up your end of the deal, you don’t get my heart.” Nate almost growls at him, biting it off between his teeth. “That’s the contract.” The demon laughs, a cruel, empty thing, and Nate chokes. Suddenly, Nate’s chest constricts, and he grasps at his neck, like something is trying to force its way up and out of his throat. 

He meets the demon’s eye, that cold, dispassionate brown, that mockery of the boy Nate loved. The demon crooks his head and smiles, and as suddenly as it began it stops, Nate’s eyes watering as he coughs raucously into his lap. 

“There’s a boy in North Dakota you should drop a line.” The demon says, apropos of nothing. Nate’s still coughing, but they’re lighter now as the demon lets him catch his breath.

Nate frowns still half-hunched over as he looks at the demon. “Wh—Jost? What do you—” The demon cuts him off with a wave of his hand. 

“Lie to him. Get him eating out of your palm. Convince him he’ll be your hero, and he’ll ruin himself to do it for you.” The demon smiles again, wryly, like he’s telling a secret he shouldn’t even know, and he looks more like Jo than he ever really has. “I’ve been lead to believe you’ve done it before. I’m surprised I’m the one who had to give you the idea.”

“I don’t— I’ve never—”

“You want to get better?” The demon asks. Nate nods, eyes wide, hands steady. “This is your first step.”

There’s a flurry of movement, and Nate’s alone again. There’s a lull in the noise from the construction crew, and all he can hear is the sound of his own breathing. Suddenly, there’s a chime from his phone, and he fishes it out of his jacket pocket. It’s a bunch of texts from Tyson, all piled up. He’s changed his name in Nate’s phone, again.

TBeauty: Cant believe u blew me off 

TBeauty: I have 2 get a ride from landesnerd 

TBeauty: I cant evn fit in the car bc of his HUGE HEAD 

TBeauty: Hes playing a backstreet boys station what a poser

TBeauty: (ง'̀-'́)ง

TBeauty: U better knot be dead or something

TBeauty: We made a pact we die together

Nate steadies his breath as he reads them, pressing his forehead against the wheel of his car to ground himself. He finds himself smiling, despite everything, as he taps out a reply. 

Nate: Sorryyy dude

Nate: I’m okay 

Nate: Something just came up we can still die together

TBeauty: !!! 

TBeauty: Too late im gonna die here in this car w gabe 

TBeauty: He teared up signin along to as long as u love me

Nate: Video???? 

Nate: Dudeeeeeee????????

The dots come up, and Nate furrows his brow. 

TBeauty: R u really okay tho?

Nate’s breath catches. He’s sitting in a car in front of a hollowed out abandoned church in fucking Windermere, after meeting with a demon who told him to manipulate a teenager into leaving university to fix his shitty hockey team, and he’s sold off his heart to do it. He’s probably pretty far from okay, as it stands. Still, there’s no use in worrying Tyson.

Nate: I will be

Nate: <3

TBeauty: <3

[TBeauty sent aslongasyoulandy.mov]

Nate watches it three times before he sends it to EJ, and laughing at the amount of angry emojis he gets from Gabe not even five minutes later makes him forget, for a little bit.

//

He already has Jost’s number, from the draft. They had the same agent, so it was pretty easy to get it, send him a quick congratulations text, and let the thread get buried there in his old messages over the course of the season. It wasn’t anything, just a perfunctory exchange between two strangers, but Nate stares at it, sitting there on his phone like an awkward accusation. 

Nate: Hey congratulations!!! Welcome to the Avs we’re so stoked to have you!

Nate: This is Nate btw

Nate: Nathan MacKinnon 

Nate: We have the same agent that’s how I got ur #

Jost: Oh wowza

Jost: Thanks!!!!! I can’t wait to show you what I can do. 

He can’t wait, Jost said himself. He’s hungry for it, in the way that they’re all hungry for it, when they’re young. Nate’s not sure when he stopped feeling that young, but he never stopped feeling that hungry. 

Nate checks UND’s schedule before he texts him, and as luck would have it, Jost should actually be closer than expected—the last day he would be before he was gone again. He wonders if the demon knew about this, if he could sense Jost through his weird demonic powers or something to arrange it. 

Nate: Hey I heard ur in Colorado ! 

Jost: Haha no 

Nate: What do u mean? 

Jost: I’m still on ir 

Oh. He hadn’t known Jost was injured. Nate probably should’ve gone harder on his googling. But then, at least that meant he’d be available. He’d probably be bored too, eager to jump back into it—Nate’s got a long game of text pong going on with EJ to prove that theory. 

Nate: Oh man that sux we wouldve come to see u 

Jost: We??? 

Nate: Me and Tyson and Gabe prob EJ if hes up to it

Jost: I’m Tyson 

Nate: Other Tyson 

Nate: Tyson Barrie 

Nate: U need a name man

Jost: I’ve got a name?

Nate: No but like a name for us 

Jost: U can call me Josty

Nate pauses a moment, phone hot in his hands. This is, he reminds himself, what’s best for the team. This is, he reminds himself, what would make the team better. And Jost—Josty, he guesses—would make the team better. He’s not doing anything except making things better for everyone, Josty included.

Nate: Were just gonna have to see ya when you come down

Nate: Ur coming right ? 

Josty: I haven’t decided yet 

Josty: I kinda want to finish the year and be educated

Josty: UND is like a great school y’know

Nate: For sure but 

Nate: We need you here

//

“What are you up to MacKinnon?” EJ asks, tapping Nate’s thigh lightly with one hand. EJ’s lain out over the couch, his braced leg propped up on a pile of pillows, still sleepy and languid with the pain medication he’d just taken. He’d been caught up in his Irish horse racing show, or whatever it was, so Nate had just taken a second to respond to a text from Josty about whether or not they’d let him drink. EJ’s trying to crane up to see what Nate’s doing, and he’d almost be tall enough if Nate didn’t pull himself up to sit on the couch arm and hold his phone out of EJ’s reach. 

“Don’t strain yourself, you big dork.” Nate mutters, sending off one last text, a well-placed thumbs up emoji. “I’m just texting Josty.” 

“I can’t believe you’re replacing me with a twink.” EJ puts on his best, fakest pout, and Nate rolls his eyes, shrugging his phone back into his pocket. 

“Yeah, he has all his teeth and he’s not a complete dick.” 

“You like my teeth and my dick.” EJ chirps back. Nate does, but he doesn’t want to tell EJ that, so he argues. 

“Nope. They’re both aw—” Nate starts out serious, but then EJ makes a face at him, licking his lips through his tooth gap and winking, and he cracks, not able to get out the rest through his laughter. “They’re both awf—”

“Awfully good, right?” EJ finishes for him, wiggling his tongue again. “Awfully sexy?” Nate groans, and buries his face in his hands. 

“You’re a monster.” Nate says. EJ agrees cheerfully. 

“And you’re far.” EJ responds, brushing his fingers at Nate’s hand, resting on his thigh. “Stop being far.” EJ tells him softly, his touch cool and inviting over Nate’s knuckles. 

Nate pushes himself off the couch arm and back next to EJ, and EJ pulls him even closer now, slotting his thigh up against EJ’s hip. He doesn’t move his hand, and they’re not quite holding hands more than EJ has his big hand laid over the pulse point on Nate’s wrist. He doesn’t say anything about it, and EJ doesn’t either. He doesn’t move his hand, and EJ doesn’t either. The fact that EJ’s sucked his dick before he’s held his hand is a bit of a trip, but it kind of works for them.

They lay like that, for a while, tangled up in each other. Broad shoulders pressed together, long legs dangling over the edge of the couch together. Nate tries to watch the races as EJ’s focus wanders back to the Irish horses and the commentator’s incomprehensible accents, and tries to stop himself from counting the rhythm of EJ’s breathing. 

EJ taps his ankle against Nate’s. “Thanks for coming to watch with me.” EJ murmurs quietly, sounding more honest than Nate’s come to expect. “I know there’d probably be better ways to spend your bye week than watching horse races with an invalid.” 

And sure, Nate could be somewhere else. He could be training, looking over game tape. He could go home for a couple of days and let his parents help him anything exists outside of Cole Harbour. He could be off partying, or drinking, or looking at wildlife, or whatever it is people did during bye week when they had nothing to play for anymore except their salaries. Nate shakes his head. “There’s not. There’s really not.” 

“You’re an awful liar.” EJ says, voice drifting as he pulls himself deeper into Nate’s grasp. 

Nate gives him a strained smile. “I’m a monster.” He says, and EJ’s laugh is small and warm against his chest. 

“Do you understand what’s happening at all?” EJ asks. Nate looks at the screen, at the horse with a ridiculous name he’s half-forgotten leading the pack, and the commentators are saying something about gelding. 

Nate smiles again, wider this time. “Tell me, EJ. Give me those horse facts.”

“Horses have 140 bones, and 40 teeth.” EJ rattles off. Nate cocks his head. 

“Aren’t bones teeth?” EJ laughs again, and flashes him a slight, toothless smile. 

“Yeah,” EJ says, and suddenly his hand wraps its way around Nate’s, their palms fit together. Nate freezes against his touch, and his heart skips. “Teeth are bones.” EJ continues, settling his head against Nate’s chest, right over the hollow of his heart. “But they’re different.” 

Nate’s about to ask him why they’re different, when he notices EJ’s breathing quiet and even out as he drifts off to sleep. 

He’s stuck there, for a while, pinned by two hundred or so pounds of rooted defenseman, the horse race still droning from across the room, but he doesn’t mind enough to move. He tries to watch the race for a while, trying to figure out what it is that EJ loves so much about horses. They’re majestic, he guesses, in that big, powerful sort of way that EJ was himself. He glances at EJ’s leg, propped up in his brace. Nate’s kind of glad EJ isn’t a horse. They shoot horses, don’t th—

“Aww, isn’t this sweet?” Nate hears him before he sees him, standing in front of EJ’s liqour cabinet, fishing out a bottle of whiskey. The demon is half-shadowed, the light of the tv garish against his suit, but there’s enough illuminated that Nate can see the scorn in his smile. He grabs a glass, peers into it to make sure it’s clean. “Did you want a drink?” 

“You can’t—” Nate hisses, stopping to quiet himself as EJ stirs against his chest. “You can’t drink that!” Nate half-whispers. 

“It’s not like he can drink it.” The demon says, staring pointedly at EJ’s leg. Nate bristles, furious at the demon coming here, to EJ’s house, while EJ was asleep, thinking it had any right to look at him. 

“Did you want to hear a horse fact?” The demon asks, apropos of nothing. 

“No.” Nate says, through gritted teeth. 

“Horses are omnivores. Some can even be carnivores.” The demon ignores him, rattling off his fact as he swirls the drink in his glass. “They can eat small birds, squirrels, and even people, if they want to.” The demon smiles that infinite smile, raising his cup in an impromptu toast. “During Napoleon’s winter soiree, a very enterprising mare named Lisette devoured a Russian officer, toe to tip.” The demon laughs, too loudly, toasting himself as he slams the glass into the bottle, swallowing the drink down in one fluid motion. 

“Get out of here!” Nate barks, and the demon makes a hand motion, as if he’s holding Nate’s heart in his hand and means to squeeze. Instead, he turns his gaze to EJ, rakes his eyes down his sleeping form. “Don’t look at him.” Nate says. The demon ignores him. 

“You know, I asked around.” The demon starts conversationally. “Some of my colleagues in St. Louis sniffed around him, for a while, after his accident.” The demon’s eye drags down to settle on the ankle of EJ’s uninjured leg. “It was quite a tragic story. First overall, top of the world, brought down by a trick of the ankle. Almost epic, even. He never bit, even when he lost his teeth.” The demon laughs again, locking eyes with Nate, and the dark brown has given way to yellow. 

“You’ve chosen a strong heart.” The demon says, and then he disappears.

Something in Nate’s chest seizes up, and sinks into his stomach. 

His limbs feel heavy and numb, but his mind races. Nate hadn’t meant—he’d tried so hard to make sure that the rest of the team wouldn’t be caught up in this deal. He’d wanted them to get all the benefit, get better, and he would be the one taking the consequences. He didn’t want any of them getting caught up in his shit, least of all EJ, who had worked so hard to get where he was, who had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to stop them from laughing at him. 

Nate couldn’t do this to him, he couldn’t let the demon ruin him. If EJ was his heart—and that didn’t even make sense, how a person could be his heart instead of his actual, physical heart—then Nate was responsible for whatever fucked up things happened to him. 

“Nate?” EJ says, voice still heavy with sleep and confusion as Nate pushes himself up, setting EJ down as gently as he can.

“Shh, it’s all right.” Nate whispers. “I’ve just gotta go. I’ve gotta go.” He says, squeezing EJ’s palm before he pulls away. 

Nate decides, shrugging on his coat as he slips out the door, leaving EJ alone on the couch, TV still blaring. If EJ really was his heart, then he would have to cut it out. 

//

It’s easier than Nate thought it would be to avoid EJ, at least while he’s injured and distracted getting himself back on the ice. They spend most of February on the road—losing over and over again until Mikko pulls them barely out of overtime in Raleigh—and it’s not all that hard to blame the time difference and the constant travel to duck EJ’s infrequent texts and Facetime requests. Well, it’s still hard. 

Nate has to stop himself, half-excited every time he sees a text from EJ, even if it’s just another meme of that dude blinking whenever they let in a goal, which actually turned out to be most of the texts he’d gotten over this road trip. He’d never thought about how often he’d started to fall asleep with EJ on the other end of the line, softly insulting him until they both drift off. 

They’re finally back home, for once, and EJ texts him something different. 

EJ: Come Over 

EJ: Ive got a Surprise

Nate stares at it. EJ’s got to have gotten his brace off by now, huh. He imagines it, EJ waiting at home for him, spreading himself out, spreading himself open, and Nate wants to punch a wall. 

He wants to go, more than anything. His dick stirs in his sweatpants: it really wants to fucking go. 

Nate: I cant right now

He says instead, like a chump. He takes a deep breath, and shakes his head. He can’t do this to EJ, can’t drag him into this, just because he wants to fuck him. Nate’s about to make up an excuse, trying to figure out who he could say he was with without EJ knowing he was full of shit. Gabe was too perceptive to use as an excuse, and Tyson was easily bought. He could say his mom was in town, and left without saying hi to anybody else, but that felt unrealistic. He could—

The doorbell rings. His dogs perk up, start to bark at whoever it is at the door, and Nate shushes them gently. He doesn’t remember ordering a package or anything, but Tyson liked to get drunk and send him things like PVC pipe or boxes of those sticky crocodiles he’d found wholesale somewhere, because they were adults now or something. He opens the door, ready to sign for something stupid, and instead there’s the demon on his doorstep. 

Nate instantly braces, about to snap at the demon about finally learning to use doors, when he takes in who it actually is. The easy smile and the nervous, hunched in shoulders, and those shining, bright brown eyes, actually happy to see him. 

“Jo?” Nate asks softly, and Jonathan Drouin moves in to embrace him. Nate lets him settle in against his shoulder, instinctively wraps his arms around him. Jo smells like salt scrub and his dumb, overpriced cologne, the farthest thing from brimstone Nate could think of, and before he knows it, Nate is lifting him up off the ground to pull him closer. 

“Whoa, big boy.” Jo says, his voice warm instead of searing. “You want to take this inside first?” Nate swings him around into his front hallway, and Jo’s gotten bigger since they were teenagers, bigger even since the World Cup, but this is still easy enough. He sets him down on the carpet and kicks backwards to close the door behind them. 

“What are you doing here?” Nate asks breathlessly, and Jo smirks at him. 

“What, I need a reason to visit my best friend?” He shrugs. “We haven’t had sushi in a while.” 

Nate runs a hand through his hair, considering. “We haven’t. There’s a new place, a sushi bar at Stanley I’ve been meaning to try.” Nate scratches at his collarbone, thinking about where he could take Jo they could eat in peace. He looks up at Jo, to ask his input, and Jo is staring straight at the mark over his heart. 

Nate takes Jo in again now, every bit of him. There it is, tucked in behind his ear, tiny compared to Nate’s but almost shining. “Jo.” Nate starts, disappointment seeping into his voice. “You didn’t.”

“I had to.” Jo says, looking pained. “I had to.” He says again, more determined this time. “You’re one to fucking talk. All that about not being worth it…” He trails off, just waving his hand towards Nate’s chest.

Nate buckles, leaning his shoulder against the wall. He wasn’t one to talk, not really. But he’d made this deal for his team, not for himself. Jo had made his deal for— “Did you ask to play here? Did you ask to play with me?” 

Jo shakes his head. “I wanted to. Demon wouldn’t let me. Didn’t want to mess with someone else’s deal.” He smiles at Nate, brittle and longing. “So I just asked to play at home.” Montreal. 

“You’ll never get rid of them.” Jo shrugs again. 

“I don’t think I was ever going to.” 

“Was it that bad there? You had to ask a demon?” Nate asks, stricken. Jo just looks at him, at his mark. 

“Is it that bad here? You had to ask—what did you ask?” Jo turns back on him. 

Nate pauses, for a second, unsure whether to tell him. “I asked for us to be better.”

Jo stares at him. “You gave up too much for that Nathan.” 

Nate closes his eyes, and sighs. His phone buzzes again, a weight at his side. EJ again, probably. “I know.”

They still go get sushi, because there’s nothing else for them to do. Nate ignores EJ’s texts, listens to Jo make sly references that aren’t really funny and wonder whether Jonesy would do the same thing, or if it’s just them. Honestly, he never would, of course it’d just be them, of course they would be the only ones to be this stupid. Nate used to call Jo his soulmate, but that was when they both had souls. 

Back on his doorstep afterwards, Jo reaches up to try and kiss him, but Nate turns away.

“I have someone, sort of.” Nate says. Jo smiles at him, and tucks his hair behind his ear, over his mark. 

“Hold on to them, then.” Jo tells him. “Don’t let anyone or anything take them away.” 

“I won’t.” Nate says. It doesn’t feel like a lie. 

Jo scores the goalwinner in overtime, and they go their separate ways again. 

//

Nate walks into the locker room for a game against Buffalo, and EJ’s stall is full, and there he is, stretching out his calves on the bench and pretending he’s not the one throwing tape balls at Tyson when his back is turned. 

For once, the locker room is something a little better than dejected. EJ is a force unto himself, making faces at Gabe and ribbing Iggy until he cracks a smile. He meets Nate’s stare across the locker room, and winks, and Nate’s heart can’t help but flutter. It’s fucked up that he probably shouldn’t be, but he’s relieved. 

EJ makes himself known, throwing himself into hits and blocks and plays, reminds them what he brought to this team, what they lost when he was gone. They win at home for the first time in a while. Nate sort of hates how small of an accomplishment feels so good. 

He’s on his way out of the Pepsi Center when someone grabs him, and he finds himself in one of the offices, face to face with EJ. 

“You’ve been avoiding me.” EJ says, more a statement than a question. 

“I haven’t been avoiding you.” Nate lies, and they both know it. 

“Really?” EJ scoffs, running a hand through his hair. “You haven’t been avoiding my texts or my calls or hanging out with me at all for weeks? I’m just what, making that up?” 

Nate bristles, turns his face away. 

“Tell me I’m making it up.” EJ’s voice is stricken, desperate, a far cry from how happy he was this morning. “What did I do?” He asks, unsure, and it’s a stab to Nate’s heart. 

“You didn’t do anything.” Nate tells him. He wants to meet his eye and tell him, but he can’t. He knows he can’t. “It’s…something’s going on with me.” Nate says, weakly, and EJ rolls his eyes. 

“Are you seriously ‘it’s not you, it’s me’-ing me?” EJ demands. “You know I’m with you, whatever it is. You know that.” 

“I know, that’s the problem.” Nate mutters, hunching in his shoulders. He takes in a deep, shaky breath, and his heart feels heavy in his chest. He thinks about Jo, thinks about what he said. He thinks about the demon, drinking EJ’s whiskey. He thinks about his heart, and he needs to cut it out. “I don’t need a draft bust on the worst team in the league dragging me down.” 

EJ falters. “What the fuck, MacKinnon? Fuck you.” His voice is breaking now, with as much anger as it is hurt. He pushes past Nate, smacking his shoulder with as much force as a check, shoving Nate to the side as he goes. “Enjoy the ride off that high fucking horse. It’s a long way down.”

Just like that he’s gone, and Nate buckles. He slumps down against the wall, holds his head in his hands, and he tries not to cry. He fails at that too, though. Out of the corner of his eye, there’s a flash of red, and there’s the demon, in his red sequin suit. 

He doesn’t look like Jo anymore. 

EJ’s face is smug and alien, his lanky frame flushed by the blood red of the demon’s suit and the emptiness of his eyes. He’s smiling with all too many teeth now more than ever. “You know,” the demon says, his voice EJ’s, but gravelly, ground to dust. He leans over Nate, wipes a tear from his cheek with his tongue, and licks it off. “Breaking your own heart won’t stop me from ripping it out of your chest.” 

Nate blinks, with the demon so close, and he’s gone. 

// 

The season ends how it started. They lose their last game at home, and their last two games on the road. There’s some flashes of hope, that Compher kid, and Josty showing up for those last few games. Hope is a pit in Nate’s stomach, a vice that slower and slower compresses his heart to nothing. The trade deadline came and went, and they’re all still here. 

Tyson pulls into the Dairy Queen parking lot, but Nate moves to get out of the car, but Tyson doesn’t unlock them just yet. “Before we go,” Tyson starts, keeping one hand on the door lock. “Is whatever going on between you and EJ going to be a problem?” 

Nate freezes. “There’s nothing going on between me and EJ.” It’s not exactly a lie. They still work together on the ice, and they still celly together when they can. Their banter in the locker room is clipped and muted, and EJ doesn’t text him anymore. Nate thinks he’s blocked him, he wouldn’t blame him for it, but Nate doesn’t really want to text him and confirm it. 

“That’s bullshit, Dogg.” Tyson says bluntly. “I don’t know what happened between you two, and I’m not gonna ask until you’re willing to say because I’m a great friend who respects your privacy, but if it’s gonna be awkward, I just want to know so I can spill ice cream on Gabe’s lap or something when you need me to.” 

Nate sighs, and smiles in spite of himself. “It’s probably going to be awkward.” He pauses. “You don’t have to do anything to Gabe’s lap.” 

“I don’t have to, but I will.” 

Tyson unlocks the door, and as they pass into the Dairy Queen, he spends some time staring at the sign out front. “Oh hey, it’s just ‘Ate’ now.” 

Nate glances at the neon ‘Open Late’ sign. Sure enough, the ‘Open’ had burnt out completely. “God, why do we still have to go to this shitty DQ if it’s just gotten shittier?”

Tyson glares at him, and they both know why. 

Gabe and EJ are waiting at their usual table. Gabe’s charming one of the waitresses by pretending to be interested in her psychology projects at the local community college, and EJ is making hand puppets out of the napkins. 

“Finally,” EJ says as they approach, carefully setting his napkin puppet down next to his Blizzard. Gabe gives the waitress one last winning smile, which he immediately turns on Tyson, who melts a little under its brightness. 

Tyson goes to order, motioning at Nate to take his usual seat, across from EJ, who has plastered on a smile at him. His teeth are in, Nate notices. Nobody says anything for a few seconds, and it really is awkward. 

Gabe clears his throat. “I was looking for that blackberry thing Tyson likes, but apparently it’s out of season.” He tries. 

“If you eat blackberries after September, the devil spits on them.” Nate recites dutifully, and EJ pipes up. 

“I thought that was blueberries.” He says with a frown. He’s looking at Nate uncomfortably, and Nate has to resist squirming in his chair. 

“No, it’s always been blackberries.” Nate confirms, and EJ purses his lips, but he doesn’t protest. 

“Anyway, I just got cheesecake instead.” Gabe concludes, stirring his Blizzard with his spoon. 

“Ooh, cheesecake. Sauce me some of that, Captain.” Tyson chimes in as he shoves into the chair next to Nate, sliding him his own Blizzard, which Tyson would most definitely end up eating. 

“Did you not get cheesecake for us?” Nate asks, and Tyson snorts. 

“I definitely got cheesecake for us, Dogg.” He says, digging into his ice cream without bothering to wait. Gabe sighs a little, but he still smiles in Tyson’s direction.

“I’ll just have to get the blackberries next year,” Gabe says wistfully, and that’s what does it, sets everybody frozen. They’ve all heard the rumors, the speculation, if they’ll all be here next year, after this year, it might be a miracle. 

EJ breaks the silence. “Can we go to a better Dairy Queen next year? Or just like, someplace better in general?” 

Tyson glares at him, and Nate grabs the back of his shirt so he doesn’t launch himself at EJ. “You take that back! This is the Mecca of quick service innovation!” 

“I might have to burn this place down so I never have to hear this argument again.” Gabe mutters, scrunching his nose and rubbing his temples with his thumbs. 

“I’d help.” Nate offers, deadpan. He has some of his Blizzard, which is Oreo this time. 

“No, Dogg!” Tyson hisses. “No arson!” 

“He’d be a good help.” EJ says, suddenly. “He’s really good at burning things down.” 

Nate freezes, and Tyson looks at him concerned. Tyson flits his gaze to Gabe’s Blizzard, sitting innocently on the other end of the table, but Nate squeezes his shoulder to stop him. 

“Nah,” Gabe says, cutting through the tension. “We’ve just gotta believe in the DQ.” 

Tyson starts. “That’s right, we’ve gotta nurture the DQ.” 

“Don’t ask for a trade from the DQ.” EJ mutters, and Tyson snorts.

“The DQ’ll get better.” Nate says, quietly. He rubs a hand over chest, brushes his thumb over the mark as it peeks over his shirt. “I know it will.” 

He meets EJ’s eye, who is looking at him like he’s trying to figure him out. Nate releases a breath. Tyson takes his cue, and knocks Gabe’s Blizzard into his lap. 

//

Nate googled it, and there were supposed to be witches in Paris. Witches were rare in general—Mikko swore up and down that his neighbor was a witch because of some of the noises he heard through the walls, but it actually turned out to be an old woman who liked really big hats and having a lot of sex—but apparently there were more in Europe, and a fair few in Paris. So when he found out Worlds were going to be there this year, he had to go. He hadn’t had much time to slip away and Nate couldn’t just tell someone he was going to meet a witch. 

He was planning to skip out early on their off day, tell Tyson he was sightseeing or something, and find the witch advertising on Craigslist, and he has a couple early alarms set when Tyson shakes him awake.

“Whazzat?” Nate mumbles as Tyson shakes his shoulder again. Nate pulls his pillow closer to his head and groans. 

“Get up, Dogg, c’mon.” Tyson says, and suddenly Nate’s got pants being thrown at his head. “Get dressed you big lump, we’ve gotta go.” 

“What’s happening Tys?” Nate asks, shrugging his jeans on and dodging Tyson as he throws a jacket at him. 

“I’m proving a point.” Tyson tells him, cryptically, before he starts digging Nate’s shoes from the closet and chucking them towards the bed. 

The jacket is a little tight around his shoulders as he shrugs it on on their way out of the hotel. “Is this yours?” Nate asks, and Tyson rolls his eyes. 

“It might be, whatever,” Tyson says, leading Nate around and corner and down a set of stairs on the street, because that’s something Paris had, street stairs. 

“It’s a subway station, buddy.” Tyson clarifies, throwing something at him. Nate catches it reflexively and blinks. It’s a piece of cardboard with a magnetic strip on it, presumably some kind of subway token. Tyson pulls him along, leads him through the turnstiles, and after a fair bit of hustling they get onto the train, the doors closing behind them as they pass through.

Tyson finds a couple seats near the back of the car, and ushers Nate to sit in the window seat. “Tys,” Nate starts, finally. “Are you kidnapping me?” 

Tyson just looks at him, digging through his pockets to pull out his phone, his headphones wrapped around them. Wordlessly, he wipes an ear bud off on his shirt, and hands it to Nate, and motions him to put it in. 

Cautiously, Nate does. Tyson does the same with the right ear bud, and they sit there in silence for a few seconds as he pulls something up on his phone. The train starts up and starts to move out of the station. Nate hears a familiar bass line, and lilting violin. 

“Dude.” Nate starts, but Tyson shushes him. 

“Just listen,” Tyson says gently, so Nate does. 

They sit there like that, shoulders pressed together, listening to Flashing Lights. Nate takes in the way the beat syncs with the movement of the train, with the beating of his heart. He looks out the window, at the trailing lights in the darkness as they pass through a tunnel, until the song closes out, and Nate lets out a breath. 

“Okay,” he admits. “You were right.” Tyson beams. 

“Damn right. I’m always right.” Tyson settles against Nate’s shoulder, and neither of them moves the ear buds, even as the song starts playing again on loop. “Best train song ever.” 

“Best train song ever.” Nate agrees, quirking a smile. Tyson pats his hand over Nate’s thigh approvingly. 

“I don’t think I’ve seen you smile in a bit.” Tyson says. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I won’t make fun of you.” 

“That’s a lie.” Nate notes, and Tyson rolls his eyes. 

“All right, I’ll only make fun of you a little.” 

Nate’s smile softens. “I know.” He says. “Thanks.” He slumps a little, relaxes next to Tyson. He wants to tell him. He wants to tell him everything, about the demon and the deal, about Jo and EJ and his heart, and everything. And it’d be so easy to, here in this train in Paris, it’d be so easy just to trust his best friend. 

Instead, he asks: “When you said you knew what it was like, when demons fucked up people’s lives, how did you know?”

Tyson’s smile falters a little, and he takes a deep breath. Nate is about to drop the subject, tell him he doesn’t have to say when Tyson answers. “My dad. He made a deal to build his stupid mountain.” 

“No shit?” Nate remembers, when he first met Tyson. His dad had this big project, that he was having a lot of trouble with. People would needle him about him, in media scrums and on the ice. Nate had met Tyson’s dad, of course, and he was a little high strung, and he kind of tried too hard, but he was very much Tyson’s dad, and Nate liked him. He didn’t seem like the type to sell his soul, but then again, neither did Nate. “How did…how did he get out it?” Nate asks, and Tyson chuckles. 

“He didn’t.” Tyson answers, shaking his head. Nate’s heart skips. “We tried so hard to find a way out of it, found lawyers, and witches, or whatever. The demon just took everything it wanted from him eventually. He lost everything.” 

“He doesn’t seem—” Nate starts, and he’s not sure how to phrase it. “He’s always seemed whole.” 

“He might be.” Tyson shrugs. “He’s never been the same.” He slumps down in his chair even more, and puts his hood up. It looks oversized, and Nate realizes Tyson is wearing his jacket. “God,” Tyson snorts. “This wasn’t supposed to be about me.” 

“It wasn’t.” Nate says, as his heart sinks. So even if he finds a witch, they wouldn’t be able to help him. One way or another, he’s got to lose his heart. He glances at Tyson, looking small and tired. “Hey, where is this train even going?” He asks. 

Tyson sits up abruptly. “Shit if I know, Dogg.” 

//

There’s something electric about this new season. Nate feels younger and faster and lighter, and the team does too. The locker room is almost unrecognizable, with half the team gone and their spots filled in by rookies like Kerfoot or free agents like Yakupov, who come out of the gate flying. Nate doesn’t know what to think about Yak. He knows what people say about him, knows that everyone thinks this is last chance, far flung from a first overall. 

He’s the nicest person Nate has ever met, and Nate is terrified of him. 

Nate’s not scoring, at first, but he’s picking up assists, and they’re winning more often than they’re losing, and there are whispers that things might be turning around from last year. It’s still awkward—Dutchy still lives in the player’s room, and Nate and EJ are still dancing around each other like Nate has to pretend like his day isn’t made every time he sees EJ smile, when every time it turns to Nate that smile disappears. Nate’s heart feels heavy in his chest, and he waits for the other shoe to drop. 

It starts in Vegas. 

“I love this city, don’t you?” The demon says, walking alongside him as they’re filing everything into T-Mobile. He still looks like EJ, tall and broad and delighted with the humidity of the desert.

“What, is the whole Sin City thing legit?” Nate asks dryly. The demon rolls his eyes. 

“Don’t be facile,” The demon tells him. Nate’s not entirely sure what that means, but he’s pretty sure EJ doesn’t either. “This whole city shouldn’t exist. It’s built on deals and transactions, on pure defiance.” He claps his hands together, as if he’s got an idea. “We should do it here.” 

Nate pauses, looks at the demon framed in the sunlight, searing against the horizon. “Do what?” He’s almost afraid to ask. 

“I’ll take your heart here.” The demon explains, his smile brighter than it should be. He leans in, craning with EJ’s long limbs, all stretched out. “You’ll know when.” 

“We’re not better yet.” Nate mutters, moving on, and the demon laughs and waves a hand.

“Just you wait and s—” Nate steps into T-Mobile, the door swinging behind him, and looks behind him. The demon’s disappeared. 

There’s something odd about T-Mobile, the labyrinthine concrete corridors and the mirrors tucked in weird spaces. It’s newer than any other arena Nate has been in, but it doesn’t feel new. There’s something baked into it, scorched in with the desert heat. It throws him off, a little, a weird feeling that settles into his chest, just above his mark. 

He wonders if that’s because of the demon. He wonders if this is the place his heart knows is its own graveyard.

He can’t throw it off, and they’re absolutely routed. Flower’s not even here, but his team runs through them like a train, the rookie goalie in net stopping everything they throw at him. The crowd is louder than almost any crowd Nate’s seen, and every time they come out of the arena, the Knights are a confusing flash of lights and gold. 

This is a good place to lose everything. 

Nate sets his jaw as the buzzer sounds, every muscle screaming as the team shuffles off the ice. This is a good place to lose everything, and Nate refuses to give it. 

//

If Vegas gave them a black eye, the Avalanche punch right back. They keep him on a line with Gabe and Mikko, and everything kind of clicks. They come out, win three in a row before they stumble, and they rush the lead up to the Global Series with all the excitement Gabe can muster. Gabe wants to show them everything he can do, wants to make Stockholm proud, and they all want to help him do it.

And then, they try to sneak Dutchy off the ice in the middle of game, and they see the writing on the wall. As soon as they hear it, gleaned offhand from some of the equipment staff, it’s all any of them can think about. Gabe and EJ are furious, and Tyson seems unmoored on the bench, vibrating out of himself wondering if it’s just Dutchy, or if it could be anyone else. Nate puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him tries to tell him to focus on the game, when he sees a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. 

The demon winks at him, still wearing EJ’s face, looking impossibly smug behind the glass. Nate tries to rationalize, knows that this has been in the works forever, that Sakic had done everything he could. A year and a half, and the demon hasn’t done anything real, anything that couldn’t be chalked up to the team itself. 

Still, Nate can’t concentrate. The Isles take advantage, light them up, and they barely have time to think about it before they have to pack up and get on a plane to Stockholm.

When they get there, there’s a tiny, sleepy eyed French boy waiting for them. 

“You must be Samuel.” Nate says. He’s not sure what to do with his hands, whether to clap him on the back or extend his hand for a handshake, and Girard doesn’t do anything either except keep his hands at his sides. 

“’lo. You are MacKinnons?” Girard greets him back, his voice still kind of nasally from the flight. He doesn’t seem to have gotten any sleep at all, but Nate’s not sure if that’s actually true or if that’s kind of just what he’s like. Nate nods, and Girard gives him a cautious, watery smile. “You can call me Sam, please.” He says politely. 

Nate offers him a smile back. “You can call me Nate, or Nate Dogg. Whatever.” Sam looks him over curiously, blinks and Nate realizes he’s staring. He’s probably a little shellshocked, poor kid. He’s about to tell him to relax, when he realizes what Sam is staring at. 

“What did you do to your heart, MacKinnons?” Sam says slowly, and he extends his hand out, as if he wants to touch, but he draws back. There’s something about him now—Nate looks him over, and it’s nothing like Jo, there’s no curse mark anywhere on him. Sam looks like he’s trying to find the words to say something more, when EJ bounds in, shoving past Nate brusquely. 

“Get your own rookie, MacKinnon.” EJ says, waving Nate off so he can meet Sam for himself. Nate wants to protest, talk to Sam some more, but the boy is basically dead on his feet, and he’s already caught up into EJ wrapping an around his shoulder and asking him what he knows about horses. EJ glares at him in a way that sets a cold pit in Nate’s stomach, so he takes it as his cue to leave.

Now would probably be a good time for the demon to show up, as he often does, but nothing happens. As Nate leaves, he presses his fingers to his mark, and there’s something about it that feels a little lighter. 

Try as hard as they might, and no one can say they didn’t try, they can’t win for Gabe. Erik Karlsson dances around them, and Dutchy barrels past like days ago he wasn’t one of them. Sam is a bright spot, taking to the ice like he owns it, weaving paths past men twice his size and spinning away the puck in a way that is half-mesmerizing. 

They lose both games, and Gabe is devastated. Tyson spirits him away from wallowing with the team at some point. Nate’s not sure what Tyson does, but he has a good idea. By the time they’re back on a plane to Denver, Gabe is ready to show the rest of the league what they can do, and they follow their captain. 

//

It’s their last game before Christmas, and the demon’s been scarce since he showed up in New York. Nate’s sort of relieved without the monster wearing EJ’s face taunting him whenever the occasion arose, but there’s something unsettling about it too. He finds himself checking his peripheries whenever he can, looking over his shoulder for any hint of the demon. He finds himself waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

It’s a normal game, in any respect, if a little sleepy. The Yotes are in the same sort of downward spiral the Avs were last year, and honestly most people are thinking about what they’ll be doing for Christmas. Nate even finds himself drifting, a little, thinking about everything Tyson is undoubtedly going to rope him into doing since they’re letting him host the party this year. Tyson’s probably thinking about it too, even moreso; he always gets so caught up in these things. Nate’s not sure if Tyson’s distracted, or what, when he blocks OEL’s slapshot with his hand and goes down. 

They usher Tyson off the ice, and everyone in the arena wakes up. The Yotes start hitting harder, and they start trading penalties, but no one scores, as hard as Nate pushes himself. 

And then—Rinaldo comes into him at full speed at center ice, knocking the wind out of him. His head spins and his heart pounds, and he thinks he sees, as Rinaldo passes, an inky black seeping over his knuckles. Nate’s still heaving when out of the corner of his eye he sees Sam, tiny and determined, tap Rinaldo lightly, as a warning. Rinaldo wheels around and hits Sam head on, knocking him to the ice. Nate sees red. 

Nate jumps on Rinaldo, tries to swipe at him, and then suddenly, EJ is at his side, barreling into him at full force. Nate meets eyes with him, for a second, and that’s all he gets before someone is on him, knocking off his helmet and pulling him away. 

Nate barely knows what he’s doing, dodging blows and throwing ones of his own, but before long he’s on top of the guy, and he’s being pulled off by a ref, and before he knows it, he’s thrown out of the game. 

Nate stops in the tunnel to catch his breath, leaning against the concrete as they rush Sam past him. In their wake, the demon appears, eyes bright yellow. “That’s more like it.” He says approvingly, looking Nate over. “Did you miss me?” 

“Fuck you.” Nate spits. The demon lifts up his hand and closes it, and Nate’s chest constricts, his heart pushing up through his throat until he can’t breathe. The demon hasn’t done this in months, and Nate’s forgotten how agonizing it is, like he’s being pressurized until he bursts. Just as quickly as it came, it’s gone, and Nate’s left sputtering, hunched over. 

“Did you do that to Sam?” Nate asks, voice still hoarse as he tries to pull himself up, and the demon smirks.

“Can’t have his kind keeping me away when we’re so close, can we?” The demon answers, without elaborating. “He’ll be fine, and we’ll be fine. Full speed ahead.” The demon grabs Nate’s collar and pulls him upright. “Get a hold of yourself, all right? The team needs you.”

The demon pushes him against the wall and leans in, so close Nate can feel his breath against his cheek, and suddenly, he’s gone again. 

//

Tyson’s kept overnight to get his hand examined, his only option for texting being dictating things to Siri that Nate is pretty sure are half wrong, unless Tyson means that his nurse is a robot balls. Nate, being the best friend in existence, decides to grab Tyson some plane snacks from the hotel vending machine. He’ll probably have to feed him, but he was going to have to do a bit of that whether Tyson was injured or not just to keep him from whining, so it all balances out. 

There’s some movement in the vending machine room, and when Nate ducks his head in there’s EJ, rooting around with the ice machine. 

“Oh,” Nate says awkwardly from the doorway. “I’ll come back later.” 

EJ pushes himself up, and Nate realizing he’s wrapping ice around his knuckles. He still looks a little keyed up from the fight, his hair mussed and his lips red. It’s not a bad look on him, but Nate doesn’t really get to have those thoughts anymore. “Hang on.” He says. “I wanted to ask you something.” 

Nate pauses, leaning against the doorway. “Uh, yeah?” He tries not to sound hopeful. He shouldn’t stay, he really shouldn’t but—he’s tired of avoiding EJ. He’s tired of pretending, at least for tonight. 

He’s not sure what he’s expecting EJ to ask, but it’s not: “Why are you such an idiot?” 

“Sorry?” Nate asks, sputtering a little. 

EJ rolls his eyes, leveling a searing look at Nate. “Why the hell would you get into a fight? It’s not your job to be trying to help me with that kind of stuff. If you get hurt, we’re sunk, okay?” 

“I wasn’t trying to help you.” Nate mutters before he realizes what he’s saying, and they both freeze.

EJ snaps out of it first, shaking his head. “You can’t be getting into fights.” He says, as authoritatively as he can muster. It’s a little hot, to be honest. “Let the draft bust sacrifice himself.” EJ says quietly, and Nate bristles. 

“You’re not a draft bust.” Nate says. EJ perks up, looks at him in askance. Nate slumps his shoulders, and he suddenly realizes how exhausted he is. “I’m sorry I ever said that. I didn’t mean it.”

EJ scoffs. “Then why did you say it?” Nate imagines just telling him, confessing how he’s the desperate piece of shit who sold his heart and brought a demon into their lives, fucked everything up beyond belief, just to be better at a game. 

“You shouldn’t be with me. You deserve better.” Is what Nate says instead, and EJ just laughs. He marches up to Nate, getting closer and closer, until he’s looming over him, eyes shining. His hand balls up in Nate’s shirt, pulling him even closer, and EJ looks him straight in the eye. 

“Don’t tell me what I fucking deserve, asshole.” EJ says, and he kisses him. He kisses him hard, and deep, and hungry, a searing, unrelenting kiss that strips away Nate’s breath. Nate murmurs under the weight of it, his back pressed against the door jamb as EJ mines into his mouth. He could pull away, should pull away, go back to where they were and keep EJ safe but…fuck it. Nate’s tired of keeping himself from having this, at least.

EJ roves down his neck, nipping at the space between his neck and his shoulder with his bottom teeth. “You’re a dick.” EJ growls against his skin, and Nate doesn’t disagree. EJ’s hand snakes its way down Nate’s chest, to palm at his cock through his jeans. “And you promised you’d fuck me forever ago.” He guides Nate’s hands down to bracket his hips, and they wander around to EJ’s ass, where he squeezes. 

“Okay,” Nate agrees, voice breathy. “Okay, let’s make up for lost time.” 

They stumble into Nate’s room, EJ stripping the impromptu ice pack off his hand and chucking it on a table, shaking his reddened knuckles out in the fluorescent hotel light. Nate licks his lips. He grabs EJ by the hips, holding one in each hand as he pushes EJ onto the bed. 

He slides EJ’s shorts and boxers down in one fell swoop, throwing them to the side in one fluid motion as EJ shrugs off his shirt. Nate pulls off his own shirt and kicks out of his jeans, leaving him in his boxer briefs as he starts to kiss down EJ’s navel and over his thighs. Nate presses a thumb against each thigh to brace himself, EJ arching himself up at each ministration. 

EJ groans as Nate licks a long stripe down his slender cock, swirls each ball in his mouth in turn, moving down to find EJ’s hole. 

“I’m gonna eat you out now, okay?” Nate says, eyes flitting up to meet EJ’s. He chuckles a little, the warmth of his mouth ghosting over EJ’s ass. “It’s a bit of a thing for me,” he admits. 

EJ smirks, his eyes impossibly bright. “We all know how much you love eating ass, MacKinnon.” He moves a hand down to settle in Nate’s hair comfortingly. “Have at it,” he says, voice deep and inviting, so Nate does. 

Nate licks and licks and licks into him, one hand bracketed over EJ’s hip, rubbing circles into his thigh, the other holding open EJ’s hole so Nate can lean into him tongue plunging into him with full enthusiasm. Nate has thought about this for a while now, for longer than he’d care to admit, and now that he’s got the chance he’s not squandering it. 

Nate swirls his tongue over EJ’s hole, timing it with every little noise and groan he mines out of him. Nate pushes in, and up, moving his hand down to brace EJ’s back and another on his leg lifting EJ up higher as Nate rises to his knees so EJ balances on his shoulders, grabbing the bottom of the headboard for purchase. Nate takes a breath, for just a second, and EJ whines audibly, the noise vibrating through his whole body. Nate licks his thumb, getting it wet enough to glaze over EJ’s well-tongued hole. 

EJ shivers at his touch, cursing as Nate presses in with his thumb and follows back with his tongue, stretching him open at the same time as he fucks into him with professional enthusiasm. EJ groans under the weight of him, coming at him with a litany of curses muffled with his arm over over his mouth, telling him how good he is at this, how much it’s obvious Nate loves this, what an idiot he was for ever pretending he didn’t want this, and Nate can’t argue, but he does snake a hand down to EJ’s mouth. 

EJ laps at his fingers sloppily, getting them wet and ready for Nate to drag them over his chest and back up to his hole, sliding two fingers in shallowly. Nate alternates between crooking his fingers into EJ, pushing into him until he brushes against his prostate, and replacing them with his tongue as soon as he draws out. Nate’s relentless, opening EJ up with everything he’s got, reaming over that hot tight hole until it’s loose, and open, and his. 

Suddenly, EJ’s breath quickens, and he grunts out a warning before he comes all over himself, spilling all over his chest without either of them even touching his cock. Some of it hits his face and jaw, mixes up into his hair. Nate lets him down and admires the sight of him, filthy with his own cum, and he runs a hand over it, collecting it so he can lick it off his hand. He licks every bit of EJ he can clean, running his thumb over EJ’s jaw to catch a stray string of cum, and licks that off too, before capturing EJ’s mouth in a deep, filthy kiss. 

“All right,” EJ says, breathless, in the corner of Nate’s mouth. “You really need to fuck me now.” Nate nods and springs off the bed to dig for a condom and lube in his bag, shrugging off his underwear as he does, leaving EJ to catch his breath. He finds them tucked into the side pocket, where they’d been for a while, when EJ throws a pillow at him. “Hurry up.” He says, like the brat he is, so Nate does.

As soon as Nate slides the condom on, EJ pounces on him, snatching the little travel sized lube squeezer and ripping it open so forcefully Nate’s pretty sure it breaks the cap off. EJ squeezes out almost excessive amounts of lube ladening them in each hand so he can coat Nate’s cock and his own ass—although Nate did a pretty good job opening him up already, if he said so himself—so it’s easy for him to sink down onto Nate’s cock. 

EJ is easy and open as he fucks himself on Nate’s cock, cursing at the sheer size of him. Nate wraps his hands around EJ’s hips to help push him down, and EJ wraps his hands around Nate’s shoulders. Once he’s fully in, EJ looks at him, eyes bright and watery, and tells him to fucking move. So Nate does. 

Nate pounds into him, arching his hips in time with the noises EJ makes, doing as much work as EJ does himself to ride him. Nate finds himself leaning over, lifting EJ up by his hips as he fucks into him. EJ’s nails dig into his back for purchase, surely scratching marks into him, but Nate barely notices as he lays EJ down onto the bed and leans into him, fucks him hard and deep, pulling out to the tip before plunging back in. EJ grabs at his shoulders, ghosts over the mark on his chest to pull him in for a kiss, and Nate obliges, latching their mouths together even as he fucks into EJ, swallowing every sound he draws he out him. 

Nate can feel his orgasm coming, so he taps on EJ’s thigh. EJ moves his hands down to Nate’s hips and pulls him in, pins him so he fills the condom still inside of EJ. When he draws out, hot and sticky, EJ collapses onto the bed, boneless, watching wordlessly as Nate ties up the condom and throws it into the garbage. He’s about to find something to clean them up with when EJ catches him, pulls him down to lay over him. 

“Be gross with me for a bit.” EJ demands, and Nate obliges. He presses himself against EJ, hooks their knees together and wraps an arm around his back, threading a hand through his hair.

“You’re really gross,” Nate muses with a bit of a giggle. EJ swats at his thigh. 

“You made me like this.” EJ says, his voice drowsy. “You always make me filthy.” He pauses for a second, lets the silence lay heavy between them before he speaks again. “Don’t leave me this time.” He warns. 

Nate looks at him, looks him right in the eyes. His mark is cold over his heart, but everywhere EJ touches is impossibly warm. He looks at EJ, and he makes a decision. “I won’t.” He promises, and he means it this time. “I’ll stay.” 

“Good,” EJ says, with a yawn. “You’ll be paying off the fine from last time forever.” 

Nate blinks, and cracks a smile. “This wasn’t part of it?” He asks, and EJ snorts. 

“Nah, this was just the first installment.”

//

Things are good after that, for a while. He and EJ settle into something, and the demon keeps himself away. They win, and win, and win, and win. They win so much they start to set records, and the Pepsi Center starts to fall in love with them again. Nate gets point after point, goal after goal, star after star, in every game and in the league itself too, and they’re talking about him for the Hart, alongside Malkin and Kopitar and Taylor Hall, and it’s amazing, it’s everything he’s ever dreamed of. 

Except the space around his heart is dark and heavy, and he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Every game they win, the worse it gets, the more tenuous it feels, the more it seems like they’re just a hair’s breadth from it all being over, from them free falling and losing every game again, from everyone laughing that they ever mentioned Nathan MacKinnon and the Hart Trophy in the same sentence.

It ends, at it always seems to, in Montreal. 

He’s never been in this city with a demon wrapped around his heart, and as soon as he steps foot off the plane, Nate feels like he can barely breathe. Jo’s not even playing—sidelined with some kind of injury—and Nate feels like an asshole for being more relieved about that than anything. 

When they finally lose, it’s a punch to the gut, but part of Nate is sort of glad to get the wind knocked out of him, to put him in his place. He swaps conciliatory blowjobs with EJ in his hotel room after the game, and steels himself for the rest of the road trip: they’ll need it as far as they’ll be from home. 

He’s packing his stuff up for the flight to St. Louis when there’s a flash of red, and Nate turns to the demon sitting on his armchair, feet up on the hotel table. Nate’s expecting EJ, or even back to Jo, as long as they’re in Montreal, but the demon’s neither of them. It takes Nate a second to place it, but he’s Taylor Hall.

That nightmare of a suit works for Hallsy better than either of the others. 

“Did it taste good?” The demon asks obliquely, smiling at him as he lounges over the side of the armchair. 

Nate stares at him. “Did what taste good?” He’s not even bothering to keep the annoyance out of his voice, that the demon would choose this form, a guy Nate barely knows except that they won’t stop throwing up comparisons of the two of them, critical thinkpieces from reporters who have never met them and Nate hopes never will.

“The taste of being better.” The demon explains with a wave of his hands. His eyes are brighter now than they’ve ever been, an otherworldly green that Nate isn’t sure whether to attribute to Hallsy or the demon. “You should savor it. We’re almost there.” 

“You’re not taking EJ.” Nate tells him through gritted teeth. “You’re not taking anything. We don’t need you.”

“Oh, Nathan.” The demon almost purrs, looking at him with fake pity. “I’ll take what I want. Our deal is golden.” He laughs, a hollow, rusted out thing that scrapes over Nate’s ears. “This is a very good form to end on, isn’t it?” The demon gestures to himself, to Hallsy’s body, just slightly off. “A Devil, to take your heart.” 

Nate wonders something. It seems a little stupid, but it’s something.

//  
It’s the middle of a game against Vancouver, and it’s not supposed to be going this badly. This road trip is becoming a wash, so far from home, and they’re desperate for the points, desperate for the spot they’d climbed into from the bottom. Nate can’t help but keep an eye on the standings, can’t help but feel the pangs every time they sink lower, behind Dallas and Minnesota and St. Louis, and it feels too familiar not to hurt. 

He’s not sure how it happens, at first. It’s just a normal hit, and maybe Nate puts a little too much force into too solid a target, throws himself in with too little regard with what could happen, but no matter what it is: he throws himself up against Edler, and his shoulder explodes. 

Everyone can see him crumple, everyone can see the pain on his face as he lumbers to the bench. He can see Gabe, moving in front of him, shielding him from the cameras, and Nate’s never appreciated his captain more. As he’s ushered into the locker room, he catches sight of EJ, stricken.

He’s alone in the training room as they evaluate some tests, just for a couple of minutes, and he catches his shaky breath. His vision swims, and out of it comes the demon. 

“This isn’t the time.” Nate grits out, but the demon ignores him. 

“Just admiring my handiwork,” The demon says, pouting at him with Hallsy’s stupidly big lips. Nate blinks. 

“Did you—” he starts, and the demon runs his hand over the back of his neck sheepishly. 

“You caught me red handed.” The demon says with a fake laugh. “I can make you better, or I can put you back where I found you, or I can make you even worse. If you’re not planning on honoring your end of the deal, I don’t have to either.” 

The demon leans in and Nate moves back, trying to avoid him touching his shoulder and causing a spasm of pain to burst out anyway. Unperturbed, the demon places Hallsy’s long fingers over the mark on Nate’s chest, and pulls. Something seizes in Nate’s chest, a different feeling from when the demon usually does this, and something in Nate’s core shakes. “Keep your promises. I promise you, it can always get worse.”

//

Nate had planned kind of a thing for Valentine’s Day, and his shoulder being fucked up kind of ruined that. EJ wasn’t exactly the most romantic kind of guy—they were watching the Bachelor once, and Nate had joked about offering EJ a rose, and EJ snorted at him and said he would eat it in front of him—so it was mostly sex-related stuff. Besides, part of Nate still wanted to make up for some of the things he’d said, prove to EJ how much he meant to him, even if EJ had long seemed to forgive him. 

The upside of all this though, was that Nate didn’t have to worry about practice or the game on Valentine’s Day, so he could prepare. He figures out of anything, EJ would appreciate some kind of romantic dinner, so he pulls out some pots and pans from his cabinets, rips the tags off them and…calls Tyson in the middle of the night. 

“Bro, you’ve seen what I eat.” Tyson says, sounding sheepish and a little out of breath. “Do you really think I know how to cook? Here, ask Gabe.” 

Nate’s about to thank him for being no help and hang up to do just that, when there’s a scuffle on the other end of the line. “Hello?” Gabe’s voice comes through, slightly husky. Nate doesn’t really want to think about why the two of them are together the night before Valentine’s Day, but he internally commends them for getting their shit together. 

“Do you actually know how to cook?” Nate asks, and Gabe makes an iffy but affirmative noise. 

“I don’t really know where to even start. All the fancy stuff is too hard, and EJ’s not a fancy guy any—” 

“EJ?” Gabe echoes, amused, and there’s more noise in the background. 

“Make him horse!” Tyson yells in the distance. “Cook him a pony!” Gabe tells him to quiet down, and Nate rolls his eyes while they argue for too long. Finally, Gabe says. “He is a red meat kind of guy.” 

Nate thinks about it, and he smiles. “Do you know how to make a steak?” 

// 

“Something smells burnt,” is the first thing EJ says as he walks through the door. He looks bright and freshly showered, bouncing on his step for riding off a shutout. 

Nate wipes the scorch marks on his apron. “Only the stuff I burned,” he responds, and EJ laughs. 

“Did you try to cook? Babe.” EJ levels a look at him, at once amused and appreciative. 

Nate shrugs, and throws his hands up in the air. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” EJ’s smile is big and beaming, without his teeth, and he moves in to kiss Nate. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” EJ murmurs against Nate’s jaw, running a hand down his back. “You big fucking sap.” 

Nate presses their foreheads together, relaxing against EJ for a second. His heart is warm in his chest, for once. He holds that moment there, and there’s a pause, where Nate wants to say something, but he’s not sure what. 

“What’d you make me?” EJ asks, shaking him from the moment. Nate grins at him and motions him over to the dining table, where he’d managed to set up a pretty tasteful display with some help from Tyson, and even scored one of those silver platter things with the cover. 

“Horse.” Nate says, deadpan, one hand on the cover’s handle. EJ looks scandalized for a second, and punches him in his uninjured arm. 

“Try again, MacKinnon.” 

Nate rubs his arm dramatically, before sighing and sweeping the cover off. EJ’s eyes widen. “I owed you a steak.” Nate tells him. “No country fried this time.” 

EJ kisses him again, and again, and again, while Nate laughs.

“Oh daddy, this is good.” EJ practically moans between bites. Nate blushes, and scratches his collarbone. 

“You know this is Gabe’s recipe right? I just followed the instructions.” Nate admits. EJ shakes his head. 

“Doesn’t matter, you didn’t fuck it up, it’s good. It’s your recipe now, fuck Landeskog.” He looks up at Nate, eyes bright and honest. 

“I’m glad you like it.” Nate says quietly. EJ is messy, devouring that steak like it’s his last meal, he’s got steak sauce all over his shirt, and Nate—Nate gets what the demon said, about EJ being his heart. 

“Hey,” EJ says, pausing for a second to meet Nate’s gaze. “I love you.”

Nate freezes, his fork still in his hand. His heart pounds in his chest, and—He shakes it off. “I love you too.” Nate says, and EJ looks impossibly relieved. 

EJ’s his heart, and he loves him. He’s not going to let anybody fucking take him away, not even a demon. 

//

They can’t really have sex without aggravating Nate’s shoulder, but EJ figures out a way to blow him by propping a pillow between him and the headboard, and Nate jacks him off in return. It feels a little bit like that first night, when EJ’s leg was still broken, and Nate thinks it’s kind of funny how they have to keep navigating around each other’s injuries. EJ falls asleep before him though, all wrapped up in him, still tired from the game. 

Nate watches him for a while, plays with his hair idly as he watches the rise and fall of his chest. He loves this, Nate realizes, stuff like this, all these quiet moments inbetween, and he hates himself for ever thinking he could give it up. 

And then the demon shows up, just a flash of red and yellow in the darkness, so quick he might as well not even have been there. 

“You’ll ruin him, you know. You do that.” The demon’s voice, Hallsy’s voice, is rough and teasing against his ear, and then it’s gone. 

Heart pounding, and almost unconsciously, he grabs his phone, and sends off a text, not even thinking about how late is is, how he’s probably not even awake to get it.

Nate: Did I ruin u ? 

Jo: No

Jo: I ruined myself mostly

//

They’re all finally healthy for once, so Nate should have known it would end up this way. It’s his first game back at home, against Edmonton. They’re riding off a ten game home win streak, and the Pepsi Center is ready for them, ready to get him back. They’re up in the third, and they just have to finish it off, and EJ shrugs into a hit right in front of the bench. His stick goes flying and he’s down and he’s not getting up, and Nate’s heart sinks. 

He’s been through this before. He’s been through this too many times. He snaps at Bednar, tells him to get the trainers out there, and they’re already moving. 

They get EJ up, but he’s hunched over. His eyes are bloodshot and he’s heaving, and he can’t look up, like looking up at Nate would tear him apart. 

EJ goes down, and they know what happens after that. They’ve all been through this before. Nate wants to go after him, wants to help him, wants to do so much more than stand here on the bench, but he can’t. He knows he can’t. 

“We’re not giving up.” Nate says, almost growls. His heart screams in his chest, and he feels like he’s ready to fall apart, but he stamps himself back together, for EJ’s sake. “We’re not giving up this time.” 

Gabe nods, and launches himself over the boards.

In the corner of his eyes, the demon’s eyes flash yellow, satisfied. 

Connor McDavid gets a hat trick and they lose the game. 

“We’re not giving up you.” Nate says again, at EJ’s bedside, gritting his teeth to ignore the sound of the beeping machines. He holds EJ’s hand, for as long as they’ll let him, until he wakes up. 

“Hey,” EJ murmurs, voice shot and sleepy. Nate jerks awake, and beams, his heart settling in his chest as he realizes EJ’s awake. “Did we win?”

Nate’s smile falters, and EJ chuckles a little. “Guess not.” 

“What is it again?” EJ asks, trying to gesture towards his shoulder, but his range of motion is sort of limited. 

“Separated shoulder, I think.” Nate answers cautiously. EJ gives him a wry smile. 

“Ouch. Guess I’m done?” Nate doesn’t answer that. EJ shakes his head. 

“You’re gonna have to give ‘em hell for me, right babe?” 

Nate smiles again, watery but determined. “Yeah. I’ll give them hell.” 

//

Nate knows that every win they get, every point they scrape closer and closer to getting into the playoffs, the closer he gets to losing his heart. He knows that, and he really doesn’t care. 

He scores and scores, as much as he can, and he’s in the Hart conversation again. Pundits on NHL Network say his name with awe, in tandem with Taylor Hall only to say that Nate’s better, that his team is better, and that’s what might make him lose it. 

He knows they’re saying they won’t make it. They all know that. But as Gabe says, they don’t give a shit. 

EJ gets out of the hospital, back in a sling instead of crutches, and Nate has to help him put on his suits every night for each home game, and if he lingers a little doing it neither of them mind. 

Nate watches the standings obsessively, watches the Blues rise and fall, and the Stars just fall. He tells Lauren he doesn’t, that he doesn’t care about that stuff, but they all know he’s lying. 

Finally, it’s game 82, and it’s all on the line, and they come out roaring. The Blues are dead in the water before they even knew what hit them, and when Gabe gets that empty netter all it does is seal the deal. 

He finds EJ in the locker room after the game, pulls him into a deep hug, careful not to hurt his shoulder. Nate presses his forehead against EJ’s, lets him pull him closer together. 

“You did it.” EJ says, laughing and proud. 

“We did it.” Nate corrects, and he’s never wanted to kiss him more. 

There’s a whisper in his ear, in Hallsy’s voice. 

“We did it.”

//

Nate goes through the playoffs with a demon at his heels and a vice around his heart. He knows there’s no way out of it. By any metric, by any standard, he got what he asked for. They went from the worst team in the league to the playoffs, facing down the best. 

This is what he asked for, to be better, and they both know it. He’s not sure if the demon is helping him anymore, or if he’s just playing with his food, watching them squirm against the Preds. 

They lose and lose, and Sam goes down. They come out bursting, steal a game at home, and the demon seems to think that’s hilarious. The next game, Bernier goes down, and Nate’s not sure how it happens, when there’s a flash of red and yellow, and he’s on the ice, and Mikko’s on the ice, and his skate is flailing. 

The cut under Mikko’s eye is deep and nasty, and too close for comfort. When Nate sees it, he can hear the demon laugh. 

They steal another one, by the skin of their teeth, Sven giving everything he’s got to bury it, and then, they’re shut out at home, completely routed, totally spent. 

In any of those inspirational sports movies, they would’ve won. Bednar would’ve given some corny speech, there would’ve been chanting, Tyson would’ve cried, and the worst team in the league would beat the best. Real life isn’t like that though. If anything, it’s more like a horror movie, and they all know where it ends. 

He can’t skip out on it, with all his nominations. All roads would lead to Vegas eventually. 

Nate has an idea. It’s probably the stupidest idea he’s ever had. But it’s kind of all he’s got. 

EJ texts him good luck before he goes. Nate tells him he loves him, and tells him he’ll get him a snowglobe.

He touches down in Las Vegas, and as soon as he does, the vice around his heart squeezes to a pinprick. He feels like he can barely breathe, like every step is a struggle. Sweat drips down over his back, ice cold. He knows the demon is there, even if he can’t see him, knows that he’s loving this. Nate feels like he’s been run over by a semi, and he knows he doesn’t look much better, but he’s got to get on a red carpet. 

He’s more excited about the Ted Lindsey, he tells reporters, rather than the Hart. He just wants people to respect him. 

“Did you mean what you said?” Someone asks him, stopping him as he goes through the reception room. Nate’s eyes widen to see Hallsy, his suit gleaming red. His eyes are bright, and curious, and he seems…nervous. It’s not the demon, Nate realizes, but Hallsy’s wearing his clothes.

“Did I mean what I said about what?” Nate asks, and Hallsy rolls his eyes. 

“About the Hart, and the Ted Lindsey. Do you really not care about it?” 

Nate raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I care about it.” He admits, with a slight shrug. “I’m not just gonna let you have it.” 

“Damn.” Hallsy says, with a snap. “Thought it’d be that easy.” 

“You’ll have to wait for me to lose, buddy.” Nate says, with as much of a grin as he can muster.

Hallsy laughs, and holds out his hand to shake. “Then, may the best man win.”

When he finds his seat, he slumps into it, trying to ignore the echoing pain in his chest and the white noise in his head. He watches the magic shows he can’t quite understand and participates in the awkward promos, getting as much into it as he can, but he’s sure everyone can tell how tired he is. There’s a chill wind across the back of his neck. Nate tries to ignore it and watch Mat Barzal get a knife thrown at his dick. 

Finally, the Hart Trophy is up, and he holds his breath. He loses, and Hallsy strides up on stage in his red sequin suit, and Nate smiles. 

“What are you smiling about?” The demon says, and suddenly the theater is gone, and it’s just the two of them, on a snowy street in front of abandoned church being turned into a condo. He looks like Jo again, and the suit has gone from gleaming sequin to blood red, resolved into shadow. “You lost the playoffs, you lost that trophy, you’re losing your heart. Vegas is taking everything you have.” 

“I know,” Nate says, looking the demon straight in the eyes, bright, searing yellow. “I lost my Hart to a Devil.”

The demon stops in his tracks, and suddenly, he changes. His eyes widen and peel off. Jo’s skin seems to stretch and slough, as a mass of dark angles and blood red and those infinite yellow eyes step out. “You little shit.” The demon says, wherever its mouth is turned into a meat grinder of teeth and bone. Teeth are bones, Nate remembers. “You really think that’s how this is going to turn out? With a pun? Are you really that stupid?” 

The demon starts to laugh, but Nate interrupts him. The demon moves towards him, his long, clawlike hand swiping at his chest and piercing through, and Nate only just manages to grit the words out between his teeth. “Verbal contract, right? More than fair?” 

The demon freezes, and blinks, and flickers. 

“Just business.” Nate says, the weight on his chest suddenly gone. “Our deal is done.”

The demon blossoms into a smile, from a hundred mouths. It reaches deeper into Nate’s chest, surrounds his heart, and bursts into flame. 

Nate burns. He burns inward, and outwards. Sulfur and brimstone flood into every space of him, rip out from under his skin, take him apart and resolve him into nothingness. He thinks he dies, for a little bit, falls apart into fire and bone. And then he blinks, and he’s put back together again, in a seat at the Hard Rock. He’s alive, and he’s whole, and he still has his heart.

He files out with the rest of the stragglers, drooping with every step, vision spinning as he stumbles into the reception room. 

“MacKinnon?” He hears someone say, a deep, half-familiar voice. Nate buckles, and he thinks he’s caught, barely. “Jesus, Ti…”

//

He wakes up to the sun in his face, to the smell of hotel coffee and soft starchy sheets. He tries to push himself up, and there’s something on a counter across from the bed. He blinks, and realizes it’s the fucking Calder. 

“Whoa there, buddy. Slow down.” Nate turns around, and there, at the side of the bed, nursing a cup of coffee and a pair of Justin Bieber sweatpants and nothing else, is Mat Barzal. “Yo, Tito!” Barzal calls out to the other room. “He’s awake!” 

Nate catches his breath, trying to make sense of his surroundings. He’s in a hotel room—Mat Barzal’s hotel room, apparently—so he’s probably still in Vegas. His arms feel weird and sticky, and he realizes there’s some kind of minty paste on them, and over his chest—his mark is still there. The mark is as big as ever, right over his heart, except instead of the deep inky black, it’s glowing a soft blue. 

“What the fuck.” Nate says, whirling around to look at Barzal, who is staring at the door to the other room impatiently. “Are you a witch?” Nate is a little afraid to ask. 

Barzal snorts. “Naw, that’s Tito.” He says, just as another man walks in. Tito, apparently, is Anthony Beauvillier. He’s wearing glasses and an oversized dress shirt and his underwear, which does absolutely nothing to hide the number of hickeys he has. 

“I’m not a witch, Barzy, how many times do I have to say?” Tito says, padding over to Nate. He pulls a jar off the bedside table and swipes two fingers in it. “Gotta reapply around your neck, if that’s okay.” Tito addresses him with a soft, gentle smile. 

“Um, okay,” Nate says, and Tito leans in to rub the ointment over his collarbone. It burns a little, at first, and Nate is rushed with the smell of mint, before it starts to cool. “Is this some kind of like, magic potion?” Tito blinks, and Barzy laughs. 

“It’s Vicks, dude.” Barzal says, and Tito turns the container around to show Nate the label. 

“Nothing magical about it,” Tito says. “But it helps to soothe your muscles.” 

“Yeah, he got his hands all over your muscles.” Barzal says, with a bit of a sneer, before taking a long sip of his coffee. Tito glares at him. 

“Sorry I couldn’t do more, bro.” Tito says. “I’m not a very good witch yet.” Barzal makes a noise, and Tito throws the top of the Vicks container at him. There’s a knocking from the other room. “I called someone last night who might be able to help though.” Tito rushes out, jumping over a pillow on the floor to let in whoever’s knocking. 

“Is he always like this?” Nate asks, and Barzal sighs fondly. 

“Yeah.” He says, staring wistfully at where Tito had gone. 

He’s not gone for long, and Tito files back in, Marc-Andre Fleury in tow, who raises an eyebrow as soon as he sees him. 

“You didn’t tell me it was Sid’s boy.” Flower says with a wide, comforting grin. He sets something down next to the bed, and Nate notices he’s wearing a leather satchel, like Indiana Jones. He grabs a chair from the side of the room and flips it to sit in it backwards, clapping loudly. “Tell me, how did a nice boy like you mix up with demons?” His eyes widen, and he fake gasps. “Was it drugs?” 

Nate looks at Flower’s deep brown eyes, and his easy smile, and under all that, the genuine concern, and he tells him everything. 

When he’s done, Flower looks thoughtful, shaking his head a little. “What is it with you Cole Harbour boys and demons? Gotta be something in the water.” 

Nate bristles. “Wait, does that mean Sid—” Flower holds up a hand to quiet him, and he turns his chair back around. He leans over Nate’s mark, tracing over it lightly with his hand. 

“You’re lucky I have enough for you.” Flower says conversationally, rooting around in his satchel for something. “I spent so much of it warding the Fortress, I was just about to send off my little baby goalies to go gathering.” 

“Are you a witch?” Nate asks again. Barzal nudges Tito, who is watching Flower intently, and Flower laughs. 

“Most good goalies are witches.” Flower explains with a shrug. “I don’t think you ever got any though. It would’ve made things so much easier on you, taught you not to fuck around with demons.” 

Flower finally produces what he’s looking for, which, actually turns out to be some kind of flower, a cheery gold. He sets it on Nate’s chest, presses in a little with his thumb, and says something in French. 

There’s a warm stirring in his chest, and the mark glows brighter and brighter in a soft blue flash. There’s a hissing noise, and Nate thinks the flower glows a little bit, but he can’t quite see. When it’s all done, the flower is sitting on his chest, now the same shade of blue as his mark was, and the mark is gone. 

“There,” Flower says, picking it up and dropping it back into his satchel unceremoniously. “Won’t cause any more problems.”

“Is that it?” Nate asks softly, tracing the spot where the mark used to be. “It’s that easy?” 

“No, not really,” Flower tells him. “You did all the hard work by getting out of that deal, this is just clean up. Easy part.” He pats Nate on the shoulder, and smiles at him. “You get some rest though. You fought a demon with puns. Pretty punishing.” Flower laughs at his own joke, brushes himself off, and gets up to leave. 

“Do we have to keep babysitting him?!” Barzal calls out as Flower leaves. 

“Someone should pick him up soon,” Flower responds with a wave of his hand. “You two can fuck soon enough!” He says gleefully. Nate snorts, and Tito flushes. 

“Who does he mean?” Barzal asks the two of them. “Shit, do you think he called Crosby?” Nate’s eyes widen, and he tries to imagine explaining to Sid all of this. Normally, he’d think Sid might just die, but apparently, the man had secrets. 

Before he can wonder too much about it, there’s another knock at the door, and Tito shoves at Barzy to go answer it this time. Barzal grumbles, but he goes. Nate hears the door open, and then a familiar voice. 

“Hey, I’m here to pick up an idiot.” Nate sits up abruptly, as Barzal leads him into the room. 

“EJ!” Nate calls out, every part of him brightening, he pulls himself up to look at him, arms looking sturdy and walk assured as he strides towards Nate, studying him for a moment before he punches him in arm, hard. 

Nate yelps. “Hey, what was that for?” Nate asks, grumbling as he rubs his arm where EJ had hit him. EJ glares at him, stares straight through to his soul. 

“That was for selling your soul, and not telling me.” EJ edge to his voice hard and sharp. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tito pulling Barzal away, into the other room. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want you to—” EJ interrupts him, putting a hand on his chest where the mark used to be. 

“Is it done?” He asked, curt and clipped. Nate nodded. 

“It’s done. He didn’t take anything.” EJ sighs, and moves in to kiss him. The kiss is warm, and solid, as if he’s proving to himself that Nate is here. 

“Tyson’s gonna kill you when he finds out. And Gabe’ll help. I already called them.” EJ murmurs over Nate’s neck. Nate freezes, but relaxes into EJ’s grip. 

“I deserve it.” He says softly. EJ tenses. 

“No you don’t,” he tells Nate, running a thumb over his jaw. He looks at Nate, like now he’s trying to prove to Nate that he’s here. “You deserve a fine. Selling your soul is a fine.” 

“I sold my heart.” Nate admits. EJ rolls his eyes, and settles in to press their foreheads together.

“Selling your heart’s an even bigger fine.” 

“I might have to pay in installments.” Nate laughs, in spite of everything, and he kisses EJ, just because he can.

**Author's Note:**

> the abandoned church in windermere that was turned into a condo [actually exists!](https://www.thedenverchannel.com/lifestyle/real-estate/colorado-dream-homes-own-this-denver-church-turned-condo-for-15m) thanks gentrification for your contribution to my fic
> 
> check me out on [tumblr](samgirard.tumblr.com)


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